Virtualization of network I/O on modern operating systems

Network I/O of modern operating systems is incomplete. In this networkage, users and their applications are still unable to control theirown traffic, even on their local host. Network I/O is a sharedresource of a host machine, and traditionally, to address problemswith a shared resource, system research has virtualized the resource.Therefore, it is reasonable to ask if the virtualization can providesolutions to problems in network I/O of modern operating systems, inthe same way as the other components of computer systems, such asmemory and CPU. With the aim of establishing the virtualization ofnetwork I/O as a design principle of operating systems, thisdissertation first presents a virtualization model, hierarchicalvirtualization of network interface. Systematic evaluation illustratesthat the virtualization model possesses desirable properties forvirtualization of network I/O, namely flexible control granularity,resource protection, partitioning of resource consumption, properaccess control and generality as a control model. The implementedprototype exhibits practical performance with expected functionality,and allowed flexible and dynamic network control by users andapplications, unlike existing systems designed solely for systemadministrators. However, because the implementation was hardcoded inkernel source code, the prototype was not perfect in its functionalcoverage and flexibility. Accordingly, this dissertation investigatedhow to decouple OS kernels and packet processing code throughvirtualization, and studied three degrees of code virtualization,namely, limited virtualization, partial virtualization, and completevirtualization. In this process, a novel programming model waspresented, based on embedded Java technology, and the prototypeimplementation exhibited the following characteristics, which aredesirable for network code virtualization. First, users program inJava to carry out safe and simple programming for packetprocessing. Second, anyone, even untrusted applications, can performinjection of packet processing code in the kernel, due to isolation ofcode execution. Third, the prototype implementation empirically provedthat such a virtualization does not jeopardize system performance.These cases illustrate advantages of virtualization, and suggest thatthe hierarchical virtualization of network interfaces can be aneffective solution to problems in network I/O of modern operatingsystems, both in the control model and in implementation

Virtualizing Graphics Architecture of Android Mobile Platforms in KVM/ARM Environment

With the availability of virtualization extension in mobile processors, e.g. ARM Cortex A-15, multiple virtual execution domains are efficiently supported in a mobile platform. Each execution domain requires high-performance graphics services for full-featured user interfaces such as smooth scrolling, background image blurring, and 3D images. However, graphics service is hard to be virtualized because multiple service components (e.g. ION and Fence) are involved. Moreover, the complexity of Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) device driver also makes harder virtualizing graphics service. In this paper, we propose a technique to virtualize the graphics architecture of Android mobile platform in KVM/ARM environment. The Android graphics architecture relies on underlying Linux kernel services such as the frame buffer memory allocator ION, the buffer synchronization service Fence, GPU device driver, and the display synchronization service VSync. These kernel services are provided as device files in Linux kernel. Our approach is to para-virtualize these device files based on a split device driver model. A major challenge is to translate guest-view of information into host-view of information, e.g. memory address translation, file descriptor management, and GPU Memory Management Unit (MMU) manipulation. The experimental results show that the proposed graphics virtualization technique achieved almost 84%-100% performance of native applications.11Ysciescopu

Bringing Virtualization to the x86 Architecture with the Original VMware Workstation

This article describes the historical context, technical challenges, and main implementation techniques used by VMware Workstation to bring virtualization to the x86 architecture in 1999. Although virtual machine monitors (VMMs) had been around for decades, they were traditionally designed as part of monolithic, single-vendor architectures with explicit support for virtualization. In contrast, the x86 architecture lacked virtualization support, and the industry around it had disaggregated into an ecosystem, with different ven- dors controlling the computers, CPUs, peripherals, operating systems, and applications, none of them asking for virtualization. We chose to build our solution independently of these vendors. As a result, VMware Workstation had to deal with new challenges associated with (i) the lack of virtual- ization support in the x86 architecture, (ii) the daunting complexity of the architecture itself, (iii) the need to support a broad combination of peripherals, and (iv) the need to offer a simple user experience within existing environments. These new challenges led us to a novel combination of well-known virtualization techniques, techniques from other domains, and new techniques. VMware Workstation combined a hosted architecture with a VMM. The hosted architecture enabled a simple user experience and offered broad hardware compatibility. Rather than exposing I/O diversity to the virtual machines, VMware Workstation also relied on software emulation of I/O devices. The VMM combined a trap-and-emulate direct execution engine with a system-level dynamic binary translator to ef- ficiently virtualize the x86 architecture and support most commodity operating systems. By relying on x86 hardware segmentation as a protection mechanism, the binary translator could execute translated code at near hardware speeds. The binary translator also relied on partial evaluation and adaptive retranslation to reduce the overall overheads of virtualization. Written with the benefit of hindsight, this article shares the key lessons we learned from building the original system and from its later evolution

A performance analysis of Xen and KVM hypervisors for hosting the Xen Worlds Project

Virtualization of the operating system has become an important consideration in the cloud, corporate data center, and academia. With the multitude of available virtualization platforms, careful consideration is needed for selecting the right solution for a specific virtualization application. This research focuses on an analysis of two open source virtualization platforms or hypervisors: Xen and Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM). Evaluations are conducted on the basis of overall performance and throughput, virtual machine performance isolation and scalability for use as a host for the Xen Worlds Project. In doing so, the existing Xen Worlds Project infrastructure, middleware, and virtual machines are migrated to KVM to provide a test bed for the evaluation using a benchmark suite and a set of scripts to simulate user behavior