Virtualization is the "creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of

something, such as a server, a desktop, a storage device, an operating system

or network resources".

Types of Virtualization:

1. Hardware Virtualization.
2. Operating system Virtualization.
3. Server Virtualization.
4. Storage Virtualization.

1) Hardware Virtualization:

When the virtual machine software or virtual machine manager (VMM) is

directly installed on the hardware system is known as hardware virtualization.

The main job of hypervisor is to control and monitoring the processor, memory
and other hardware resources.

After virtualization of hardware system we can install different operating system

on it and run different applications on those OS.

Usage:

Hardware virtualization is mainly done for the server platforms, because

controlling virtual machines is much easier than controlling a physical server.

2) Operating System Virtualization:

When the virtual machine software or virtual machine manager (VMM) is

installed on the Host operating system instead of directly on the hardware
system is known as operating system virtualization.

Usage:

Operating System Virtualization is mainly used for testing the applications on

different platforms of OS.

3) Server Virtualization:

When the virtual machine software or virtual machine manager (VMM) is

directly installed on the Server system is known as server virtualization.
Usage:

Server virtualization is done because a single physical server can be divided into
multiple servers on the demand basis and for balancing the load.

4) Storage Virtualization:

Storage virtualization is the process of grouping the physical storage from

multiple network storage devices so that it looks like a single storage device.

Storage virtualization is also implemented by using software applications.

Usage:

Storage virtualization is mainly done for back-up and recovery purposes.

COMPONENTS OF VIRTUALIZATION-

Physical Infrastructure
Physical infrastructure provides the foundation for the server virtualization
infrastructure and consists of the compute, network, and storage assets.

• Embedded Input/output device such as Ethernet adapters

• Shared I/O devices such as CPU, Memory

Virtual Machine
A Virtual Machine is a logical resource, a computer file, typically called an image
that behaves like an actual computer. Where the VM differs from a physical
system is that exists as nothing more than an image file.

Virtual Infrastructure
The virtual infrastructure includes one or more virtualization platforms such as
hypervisors, storage virtualization, network virtualization, etc.

The virtual infrastructure is responsible for:

• Connection physical resources

 • Exposing physical resources through one or more abstraction layers
• Serving and isolating Virtual Machines
• Managing VM access physical resources over hypervisors
• Provide native tools for management
• Provide API interface for an agile infrastructure

Hypervisors
Every virtualization technology has its own hypervisor. The hypervisor is
software that runs on the hardware and creates virtual machines (VMs). The
physical hardware, when installed as a hypervisor, is called the host. The host
treats resources (CPU, Memory, Storage, and Network) as a pool that can be
allocated between existing VMs.

Being the primary link between a VM and the physical hardware resources,
other roles of the hypervisor:

• Isolating VMs
• Passing hardware instructions to the VM and the physical host

Hypervisor Architectures
• Type I – Bare Metal
• Type II
Type I hypervisors run directly on system hardware and rely on a microkernel
for all tasks that the hypervisor is responsible for.

Type II hypervisors require an operating systems kernel such as Linux kernel,

Windows kernel in order to run.

Virtual Infrastructure

Networking
Virtual network adapters can be added to a VM when it is first deployed or
cloned from an image. Virtual network adapters have unique MAC addresses
that enable VM to be easily identified on the network. Virtual network adapters
use a virtual switch to send a package over physical NIC on the physical host.
Hypervisors may leverage up to three types of virtual switches:

• Basic virtual switch

• Distributed virtual switch

• Third-party virtual switch

Storage

All virtual platforms require dedicated storage resources to define disk spaces.
There are no differences between physical and virtual machines when
comparing to write data to persistent storage. Just physical servers, virtual
machines need their own disk. While VM creating, disk resource can be defined
as either virtual disk files (vmdk) or raw device mapping.
1. Full Virtualization: Full Virtualization was introduced by IBM in the year
1966. It is the first software solution for server virtualization and uses binary
translation and direct approach techniques. In full virtualization, guest OS is
completely isolated by the virtual machine from the virtualization layer and
hardware. Microsoft and Parallels systems are examples of full

virtualization.
2. Paravirtualization: Paravirtualization is the category of CPU virtualization
which uses hypercalls for operations to handle instructions at compile time. In
paravirtualization, guest OS is not completely isolated but it is partially isolated
by the virtual machine from the virtualization layer and hardware. VMware and
Xen are some examples of

paravirtualization.
The difference between Full Virtualization and Paravirtualization are as
follows:
[Link]. Full Virtualization Paravirtualization

In Full virtualization, virtual In paravirtualization, a virtual machine

machines permit the execution of does not implement full isolation of OS
the instructions with the running but rather provides a different API
of unmodified OS in an entirely which is utilized when OS is subjected
1. isolated way. to alteration.
 [Link]. Full Virtualization Paravirtualization

While the Paravirtualization is more

2. Full Virtualization is less secure. secure than the Full Virtualization.

Full Virtualization uses binary While Paravirtualization uses

translation and a direct approach hypercalls at compile time for
3. as a technique for operations. operations.

Full Virtualization is slow than Paravirtualization is faster in operation

4. paravirtualization in operation. as compared to full virtualization.

Full Virtualization is more Paravirtualization is less portable and

5. portable and compatible. compatible.

Examples of full virtualization are Examples of paravirtualization are

6. Microsoft and Parallels systems. Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Xen, etc.

The guest operating system has to be

It supports all guest operating modified and only a few operating
7. systems without modification. systems support it.

Using the drivers, the guest operating

The guest operating system will system will directly communicate with
8. issue hardware calls. the hypervisor.

It is less streamlined compared to

9. para-virtualization. It is more streamlined.

It provides less isolation compared to

10. It provides the best isolation. full virtualization.
 Type 1 hypervisor Type 2 hypervisor

Definition Runs on bare metal Runs on an existing OS

Virtualization Hardware virtualization OS virtualization

Security More secure Less secure

Latency Lower latency Higher latency

Resource saving More effective Less effective

Cost Higher Lower

Remote console
Yes No
required

Challenges of cloud computing:

Security and Privacy

Security and Privacy of information is the biggest challenge to cloud computing.

Security and privacy issues can be overcome by employing encryption, security
hardware and security applications.

Portability

This is another challenge to cloud computing that applications should easily be

migrated from one cloud provider to another. There must not be vendor lock-
in. However, it is not yet made possible because each of the cloud provider uses
different standard languages for their platforms.

Interoperability

It means the application on one platform should be able to incorporate services

from the other platforms. It is made possible via web services, but developing
such web services is very complex.

Computing Performance
Data intensive applications on cloud requires high network bandwidth, which
results in high cost. Low bandwidth does not meet the desired computing
performance of cloud application.

Reliability and Availability

It is necessary for cloud systems to be reliable and robust because most of the
businesses are now becoming dependent on services provided by third-party.