Performance evaluation of windows virtual machines on a Linux host

Virtualization has experienced a dramatic expansion recently and today is ubiquitous in modern IT industry since it provides numerous benefits to companies and individual users. It increases efficiency, flexibility and scalability of IT equipment by enabling different software-based environments on a single physical hardware. Each virtual machine is a separate instance that is completely independent and separated from the computer hardware and it runs on emulated hardware. Emulated hardware is managed by virtualization tool that provides lower resources when compared to physical hardware. This paper presents a performance evaluation of three different virtual machines run by three recent versions of Windows operating system, namely Windows 7TM Professional, Windows 8.1TM Professional and Windows 10TM Professional, on a host computer system run by Linux Ubuntu. Performance measurement results show that Window 7 is the most suitable virtual operating system since it obtains the best performance when run on a Linux host

A Survey on Security Aspects of Server Virtualization in Cloud Computing

Significant exploitation and utilization of cloud computing in industry is come with and in the identical time vulnerable by unease regarding protection of data hold by cloud computing providers. One of the penalties of moving data processing and storage off business site is that organizations have fewer controls over their infrastructure. seeing that, cloud service (CS) providers must hope that the CS provider is capable to protect their data and infrastructure from both exterior and domestic attacks. Presently however, such hope can only rely on organizational procedures stated by the CS provider and cannot be remotely verified and validated by an external party. The central distinction between cloud computing and conventional enterprise internal Information Technology services is that the proprietor and the consumer of cloud Information Technology infrastructures are separated in cloud. This transform requires a safety responsibility severance in cloud computing. Cloud service providers (CSP) should safe the services they propose and cannot surpass the customers’ authorities. Virtualization is a buildup utterance in the Information Technology world. With the assure to reduce the ever mounting infrastructure inside data centers connected to other important apprehensions such as ease of use and scalability, virtualization technology has been in advance recognition not only with IT experts yet also among administrators and executives as well. The progressively more growing rate of the approval of this technology has exposed these systems to new protection concerns which in recent history have been unnoticed or merely overlooked. This paper presents an in depth state of art gaze at  present most old server virtualization explanations, as well as a writing study on different security matters found inside this virtualization technology. These problems can be practical to all the existing virtualization technologies accessible with no spotlight on a specific answer. Nevertheless, we do susceptibility investigation of two of the mainstream recognized virtualization answers: VMware ESX and Xen. to conclude, we illustrate some clarifications on how to progress the security of online banking and electronic commerce, using virtualization

Security challenges with virtualization

Tese de mestrado, Segurança Informática, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2009Virtualização é uma palavra em voga no mundo das tecnologias de informação. Com a promessa de reduzir o constante crescimento das infra-estruturas informáticas dentro de um centro de processamento de dados, aliado a outros aspectos importantes como disponibilidade e escalabilidade, as tecnologias de virtualização têm vindo a ganhar popularidade, não só entre os profissionais de tecnologias de informação mas também administradores e directores. No entanto, o aumento da adopção do uso desta tecnologia expõe o sistema a novas preocupações de segurança que normalmente são negligenciadas. Esta tese apresenta o estado da arte das soluções actualmente mais usadas de virtualização de servidores e também um estudo literário dos vários problemas de segurança das tecnologias de virtualização. Estes problemas não são específicos em termos de produto, e são abordados no âmbito de tecnologias de virtualização. No entanto, nesta tese é feita uma análise de vulnerabilidades de duas das mais conhecidas soluções de virtualização: Vmware EXS e Xen. No final, são descritas algumas soluções para melhorar a segurança de acesso a banco online e de comercio electrónico, usando virtualização.Virtualization is a hype word in the IT world. With the promise to reduce the ever-growing infrastructure inside data centers allied to other important concerns such as availability and scalability, virtualization technology has been gaining popularity not only with IT professionals but also among administrators and directors as well. The increasingly rising rate of the adoption of this technology has exposed these systems to new security concerns which in recent history have been ignored or simply overlooked. This thesis presents an in depth state of art look at the currently most used server virtualization solutions, as well as a literature study on various security issues found within this virtualization technology. These issues can be applied to all the current virtualization technologies available without focusing on a specific solution. However, we do a vulnerability analysis of two of the most known virtualization solutions: VMware ESX and Xen. Finally, we describe some solutions on how to improve the security of online banking and e-commerce, using virtualization

A Server Consolidation Solution

Advances in server architecture has enabled corporations the ability to strategically redesign their data centers in order to realign the system infrastructure to business needs. The architectural design of physically and logically consolidating servers into fewer and smaller hardware platforms can reduce data center overhead costs, while adding quality of service. In order for the organization to take advantage of the architectural opportunity a server consolidation project was proposed that utilized blade technology coupled with the virtualization of servers. Physical consolidation reduced the data center facility requirements, while server virtualization reduced the number of required hardware platforms. With the constant threat of outsourcing, coupled with the explosive growth of the organization, the IT managers were challenged to provide increased system services and functionality to a larger user community, while maintaining the same head count. A means of reducing overhead costs associated with the in-house data center was to reduce the required facility and hardware resources. The reduction in the data center footprint required less real estate, electricity, fire suppression infrastructure, and HVAC utilities. In addition, since the numerous stand alone servers were consolidated onto a standard platform system administration became more agile to business opportunities.

IP addressing, transition and security in 5G networks

The number of devices on the Internet is always increasing and there is need for reliable IP addressing. 5G network will be built on two main technologies; SDN and NFV which will make it elastic and agile compared to its predecessors. Elasticity will ensure that additional devices can always be added to the network. IPv4 addresses are already depleted and cannot support the expansion of the Internet to ensure the realization of future networks. IPv6 addressing has been proposed to support 5G networking because of the sufficient number of addresses that the protocol provides. However, IPv4 addressing will still be used concurrently with IPv6 addressing in networks until they become fully IPv6 based. The structure of IPv4 header is different from IPv6 header hence the two protocols are incompatible. There is need for seamless intercommunication between devices running IPv4 and IPv6 in future networks. Three technologies namely; Dual Stack, Tunneling and Translation have been proposed to ensure that there is smooth transition from IPv4 to IPv6 protocol. This dissertation demonstrates Tunneling of IPv6 over IPv4. Also, this research work reviews network security threats of past networks that are likely to be experienced in 5G networks. To counter them, reliable IP security strategies used in current networks are proposed for use in next generation networks. This dissertation evaluates and analyzes IPv4, IPv6 network and Tunneling models in an SDN network environment. The performance of an IPv4 only network is compared to the IPv6 only network. Also, devices addressed with both protocols are connected. The results obtained illustrate that IPv4 and IPv6 devices can effectively communicate in a 5G network environment. In addition, a tunnel is used to run IPv6 protocol over an IPv4 network. The devices on both ends of the tunnel could communicate with each other effectively

Transparent live migration of container deployments in userspace

En aquesta tèsis de Màster, presentem una eina per realitzar migracions de contenidors tipus runC emprant CRIU. La nostre solució és eficient en termes d utilització de recursos, memòria i disc, i minimitza el temps de migració quan comparada amb una migració basada en capturar-transferir-reiniciar i amb la migració nativa de màquines virtuals oferida pels seus proveı̈dors. En afegit, la nostra eina permet migrar aplicacions que fan ús intensiu tant de memòria com de xarxa, amb connexions TCP establertes, i namespaces externs. La implementació està acompanyada d una recerca bibliogràfica en profunditat, aixı́ com d una sèrie d experiments que motiven els nostres criteris de disseny. El codi és de lliure accés i es pot trobar a la pàgina web del projecte

Building Computing-As-A-Service Mobile Cloud System

The last five years have witnessed the proliferation of smart mobile devices, the explosion of various mobile applications and the rapid adoption of cloud computing in business, governmental and educational IT deployment. There is also a growing trends of combining mobile computing and cloud computing as a new popular computing paradigm nowadays. This thesis envisions the future of mobile computing which is primarily affected by following three trends: First, servers in cloud equipped with high speed multi-core technology have been the main stream today. Meanwhile, ARM processor powered servers is growingly became popular recently and the virtualization on ARM systems is also gaining wide ranges of attentions recently. Second, high-speed internet has been pervasive and highly available. Mobile devices are able to connect to cloud anytime and anywhere. Third, cloud computing is reshaping the way of using computing resources. The classic pay/scale-as-you-go model allows hardware resources to be optimally allocated and well-managed. These three trends lend credence to a new mobile computing model with the combination of resource-rich cloud and less powerful mobile devices. In this model, mobile devices run the core virtualization hypervisor with virtualized phone instances, allowing for pervasive access to more powerful, highly-available virtual phone clones in the cloud. The centralized cloud, powered by rich computing and memory recourses, hosts virtual phone clones and repeatedly synchronize the data changes with virtual phone instances running on mobile devices. Users can flexibly isolate different computing environments. In this dissertation, we explored the opportunity of leveraging cloud resources for mobile computing for the purpose of energy saving, performance augmentation as well as secure computing enviroment isolation. We proposed a framework that allows mo- bile users to seamlessly leverage cloud to augment the computing capability of mobile devices and also makes it simpler for application developers to run their smartphone applications in the cloud without tedious application partitioning. This framework was built with virtualization on both server side and mobile devices. It has three building blocks including agile virtual machine deployment, efficient virtual resource management, and seamless mobile augmentation. We presented the design, imple- mentation and evaluation of these three components and demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed mobile cloud model

Network Function Virtualization technologies applied to cellular systems

Future 5G networks will exploit the inherent flexibility associated to the introduction of Network Function Virtualization (NFV) technologies in both the core network and even the Radio Access Network (RAN) through the software implementation of network functions running on general purpose computing/storage resources. The advent of the NFV paradigm provides an inherent capability to add new functionalities, extend, upgrade or evolve existing functionalities and to customize the network on a per-tenant basis. In this context, this work intends to make an analysis of the cuFuture 5G networks open a new spectrum of possibilities, both at the level of services it can offer, and at the level of its deployment. This thesis aims to make a study of some of the technologies that make possible the arrival of 5G, such as virtualization and virtualization applied to networks, NFV. In order to better understand the defined standard for NFV, the analysis of market NFV-MANO available tools is included. In addition, the study and evaluation of the deployment process of a virtualized 5G network scenario has been performed with HPE NFV Director