Hypervisor

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A hypervisor is a form of virtualization software used in Cloud hosting to
divide and allocate the resources on various pieces of hardware. The
program which provides partitioning, isolation, or abstraction is called a
virtualization hypervisor. The hypervisor is a hardware virtualization
technique that allows multiple guest operating systems (OS) to run on a
single host system at the same time. A hypervisor is sometimes also called a
virtual machine manager(VMM).

Types of Hypervisor –

TYPE-1 Hypervisor:
The hypervisor runs directly on the underlying host system. It is also known
as a “Native Hypervisor” or “Bare metal hypervisor”. It does not require any
base server operating system. It has direct access to hardware resources.
Examples of Type 1 hypervisors include VMware ESXi, Citrix XenServer, and
Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor.

Pros & Cons of Type-1 Hypervisor:

Pros: Such kinds of hypervisors are very efficient because they have direct
access to the physical hardware resources(like Cpu, Memory, Network, and
Physical storage). This causes the empowerment of the security because
there is nothing any kind of the third party resource so that attacker couldn’t
compromise with anything.
Cons: One problem with Type-1 hypervisors is that they usually need a
dedicated separate machine to perform their operation and to instruct
different VMs and control the host hardware resources.

TYPE-2 Hypervisor:
A Host operating system runs on the underlying host system. It is also
known as ‘Hosted Hypervisor”. Such kind of hypervisors doesn’t run directly
over the underlying hardware rather they run as an application in a Host
system(physical machine). Basically, the software is installed on an
operating system. Hypervisor asks the operating system to make hardware
calls. An example of a Type 2 hypervisor includes VMware Player or Parallels
Desktop. Hosted hypervisors are often found on endpoints like PCs. The
type-2 hypervisor is very useful for engineers, and security analysts (for
checking malware, or malicious source code and newly developed
applications).
Pros & Cons of Type-2 Hypervisor:
Pros: Such kind of hypervisors allows quick and easy access to a guest
Operating System alongside the host machine running. These hypervisors
usually come with additional useful features for guest machines. Such tools
enhance the coordination between the host machine and the guest machine.
Cons: Here there is no direct access to the physical hardware resources so
the efficiency of these hypervisors lags in performance as compared to the
type-1 hypervisors, and potential security risks are also there an attacker
can compromise the security weakness if there is access to the host
operating system so he can also access the guest operating system.

Choosing the right hypervisor :

Type 1 hypervisors offer much better performance than Type 2 ones
because there’s no middle layer, making them the logical choice for mission-
critical applications and workloads. But that’s not to say that hosted
hypervisors don’t have their place – they’re much simpler to set up, so
they’re a good bet if, say, you need to deploy a test environment quickly.
One of the best ways to determine which hypervisor meets your needs is to
compare their performance metrics. These include CPU overhead, the
amount of maximum host and guest memory, and support for virtual
processors. The following factors should be examined before choosing a
suitable hypervisor:
1. Understand your needs: The company and its applications are the
reason for the data center (and your job). Besides your company’s needs,
you (and your co-workers in IT) also have your own needs. Needs for a
virtualization hypervisor are:

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b. Scalability
c. Usability
d. Availability
e. Reliability
f. Efficiency
g. Reliable support
2. The cost of a hypervisor: For many buyers, the toughest part of
choosing a hypervisor is striking the right balance between cost and
functionality. While a number of entry-level solutions are free, or practically
free, the prices at the opposite end of the market can be staggering.
Licensing frameworks also vary, so it’s important to be aware of exactly
what you’re getting for your money.

3. Virtual machine performance: Virtual systems should meet or exceed

the performance of their physical counterparts, at least in relation to the
applications within each server. Everything beyond meeting this benchmark
is profit.

4. Ecosystem: It’s tempting to overlook the role of a hypervisor’s

ecosystem – that is, the availability of documentation, support, training,
third-party developers and consultancies, and so on – in determining
whether or not a solution is cost-effective in the long term.

5. Test for yourself: You can gain basic experience from your existing
desktop or laptop. You can run both VMware vSphere and Microsoft Hyper-V
in either VMware Workstation or VMware Fusion to create a nice virtual
learning and testing environment.

HYPERVISOR REFERENCE MODEL :

There are 3 main modules coordinates in order to emulate the underlying
hardware:

1. DISPATCHER:
The dispatcher behaves like the entry point of the monitor and
reroutes the instructions of the virtual machine instance to one of
the other two modules.

2. ALLOCATOR:
The allocator is responsible for deciding the system resources to be
provided to the virtual machine instance. It means whenever a
virtual machine tries to execute an instruction that results in
changing the machine resources associated with the virtual
machine, the allocator is invoked by the dispatcher.

3. INTERPRETER:
The interpreter module consists of interpreter routines. These are
executed, whenever a virtual machine executes a privileged
instruction.

Difference between Grid Computing and Utility

Computing
Last Updated : 21 Jan, 2021
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1. Grid Computing :
Grid Computing, as name suggests, is a type of computing that combine
resources from various administrative domains to achieve common goal. Its
main goal to virtualized resources to simply solve problems or issues and
apply resources of several computers in network to single problem at same
time to solve technical or scientific problem.
2. Utility Computing :
Utility Computing, as name suggests, is a type of computing that provide
services and computing resources to customers. It is basically a facility that
is being provided to users on their demand and charge them for specific
usage. It is similar to cloud computing and therefore requires cloud-like
infrastructure.
Difference between Grid Computing and Utility Computing :
Grid Computing Utility Computing

It is a process architecture that combines It is process architecture that provide on-demand

 Grid Computing Utility Computing

different computing resources from multiple

computing resources and infrastructure on basis of
locations to achieve desired and common
pay per use method.
goal.

It distributes workload across multiple It allows organization to allocate and segregate

systems and allow computers to contribute computing resources and infrastructure to various
their individual resources to common goal. users on basis of their requirements.

It makes better use of existing resources,

It simply reduces IT costs, easier to manage,
address rapid fluctuations in customer
provide greater flexibility, compatibility, provide
demands, improve computational capabilities,
more convenience, etc.
provide flexibility, etc.

It mainly focuses on sharing computing It mainly focuses on acquiring computing

resources. resources.

It is of three types i.e., computational grid,

It is of two type i.e., Internal and external utility.
data grid, and collaborative grid.

It is used in large organizations such as Amazon,

It is used in ATMs, back-end infrastructures,
Google, etc., where they establish their own utility
marketing research, etc.
services for computing storage and applications.

Its main purpose is to make computing resources

Its main purpose is to integrate usage of
and infrastructure management available to
computer resources from cooperating partners
customer as per their need, and charge them for
in form of VO (Virtual Organizations).
specific usage rather than flat rate.

Its characteristics include resource Its characteristics include scalability, demand

coordination, transparent access, dependable pricing, standardized utility computing services,
access, etc. automation, etc.

Difference between AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud

Platform
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is a cloud computing platform which was introduced in
2002. It offers a wide range of cloud services such as Infrastructure as a Service
(IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).

AWS provides the largest community with millions of active customers as well as
thousands of partners globally. Most of the organizations use AWS to expand their
business by moving their IT management to the AWS.
Flexibility, security, scalability, and better performance are some important features
of AWS.

Microsoft Azure
Microsoft Azure is also called as Windows Azure. It is a worldwide cloud platform
which is used for building, deploying, and managing services. It supports multiple
programming languages such as Java, Nodejs, C, and C#. The advantage of using
Microsoft Azure is that it allows us to a wide variety of services without arranging and
purchasing additional hardware components.

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Microsoft Azure provides several computing services, including servers, storage,

databases, software, networking, and analytics over the Internet.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is introduced by Google in 2011. It allows us to use
Google's products such as Google search engine, Gmail, YouTube, etc. Most of
the companies use this platform to easily build, move, and deploy applications on the
cloud. It allows us to access these applications using a high-speed internet
connection. The advantage of GCP is that it supports various databases such as SQL,
MYSQL, Oracle, Sam, and more.

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) provides various cloud computing services, including
computing, data analytics, data storage, and machine learning.

Difference between AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform (GCP)

Although AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google cloud platforms offer various high-level
features in terms of computing, management, storage, and other services, but there
are also some differences between these three.

Parameter AWS Azure Google

Cloud
Platform

App It uses It uses It uses

Testing device DevTest Cloud Test
farm labs labs.

API Amazon Azure API Cloud

Manageme API gateway endpoints.
nt gateway

Kubernete EKS Kubernet Kubernete

s es s engine
Manageme service
nt

Git AWS Azure Cloud

Repositori source source source
es repositori repositori repositori
es es es.

Data Redshift SQL Big Query

warehouse warehous
e

Object S3 Block Google

Storage Blobs and cloud
files storage.

Relational RDS Relationa Google

DB l DBs Cloud SQL

Block EBS Page Persistent

Storage Blobs disks

Marketpla AWS Azure G suite

ce

File EFS Azure ZFS and

Storage Files Avere

Media Amazon Azure Cloud

Services Elastic media video
transcode services intelligenc
r e API

Virtual VPC VNet Subnet

network

Pricing Per hour Per Per

minute minute

Maximum 128 128 96

processors
in VM

Maximum 3904 3800 1433

memory in
VM (GiB)

Catching ElasticCac RedisCac CloudCDN

he he

Load Elastic Load Cloud

Balancing Load Balancer Load
Configurati Balancing Applicatio Balancing
on n
Gateway

Global CloudFron Content Cloud

Content t Delivery Interconn
Delivery Network ect
Networks