1. Virtualization Review and Discussion
Omer Khalid 5th July 2010

2. Objectives
To explore and evaluate how virtualization could be useful for us as a group
in facilitating quick deployment for our test use cases
Virtualization
Only a very brief overview
Based on interest, a more detailed presentation later
About the nitty-gritty aspects of virtualization technology it self

3. Outline Virtualization overview Grid use case EN-ICE scenario
Commercial solutions
Conclusion

4. Virtualization Overview
“An efficient, isolated duplicate of a real machine”
-”Formal Requirements for Virtualizable 3rd Generation Architectures” Popek and Goldberg, 1974
In early 70’s, IBM introduced its VM system
Multiplexing a single machine among many users
Multiple techniques:
Emulation, containers, para-virtualization, bit-translation
Key features:
Multiple operating systems
Execution isolation
Fine grained resource allocation
Portability

5. Deployment
Source: Citrix.com

6. Grid use case – slide 1 Grid middleware certification
Constant testing and validation of patches for bug fixes
By a team of people
Each patch has to be certified against a certain release
Constant re-installation of physical machines after each validation
For that period of time, no other user could touch that machine
Multiple releases at a given time
Difficult to track the installation configuration for quick deployment
Solution: kickstart installation scripts for each release
Additional overhead for preparing test enviornment
Wastage of resources:
Each server with 4GB RAM, 250 GB disk, dual-core SMP processors
Rate of progress constrained by availability of physical servers

7. Use case – slide 2 Solution single managed service How? Benefits
running virtualization hypervisor on each server
maintaining an VM image library for each software release and OS type
custom-developed web portal for users to create/remove VMs
quick deployment of VM with a required software pre-installed ~ 3 mins
4 VM’s per server ≈ 4x more concurrent patch certification

8. Snapshot

9. EN ICE Scenario Number of developer/engineer teams in various sections
Individual evaluations:
Running virtual machines on their machines
Managing their own images
fixing networking and other configuration issues to get it working
What if:
A managed service for the group
With user access portal for quick VM deployment and testing
Pre-configured images with PVSS 3.6/3.8 or else
OS types: Win XP, Win Server 2003, Linux
Advantages:
Simplicity and Flexibility
for users to quickly deploy their test VM and focus on the “ends” rather then “means”

10. Available Solutions Mainstreams solutions has emerged
VMWare, Citrix, Eucalyptus etc
No need for custom development
higher development cost over the long run
Requires some one to maintain
Available solutions:
Software life cycle development
Lab development solutions for small teams
Virtualization based desktop services to remote clients
Application delivered remotely using virtualization

11. Lab life cycle management -II
Features available:
Web based self-service portal for users
To create and deploy virtual machines
To access VM console from any machine
To check-point save live VM images as differential snapshots
Very useful for remote development teams (e.g. ETM for PVSS)
Roles and rights for users and groups
For image management, system administration, users etc
LDAP/Active Directory integration
Will allow to use CERN Login credentials

12. Architecture
Source: VMWare.com

13. Conclusion QUESTIONS 
Virtualization and commercial solutions can be very useful
Considerations:
Software/hardware cost
Part-time man power to manage it
Evaluation
Compatibility between our test use cases and capabilities provided by these tools
e.g. hardware access, specific networking configurations
Trial setup with 2-3 servers
Rolling it out to limited users to validate
QUESTIONS 