CloudJet4BigData: Streamlining Big Data via an Accelerated Socket Interface

Big data needs to feed users with fresh processing results and cloud platforms can be used to speed up big data applications. This paper describes a new data communication protocol (CloudJet) for long distance and large volume big data accessing operations to alleviate the large latencies encountered in sharing big data resources in the clouds. It encapsulates a dynamic multi-stream/multi-path engine at the socket level, which conforms to Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) and thereby can accelerate any POSIX-compatible applications across IP based networks. It was demonstrated that CloudJet accelerates typical big data applications such as very large database (VLDB), data mining, media streaming and office applications by up to tenfold in real-world tests

High-performance and Scalable Software-based NVMe Virtualization Mechanism with I/O Queues Passthrough

NVMe(Non-Volatile Memory Express) is an industry standard for solid-state drives (SSDs) that has been widely adopted in data centers. NVMe virtualization is crucial in cloud computing as it allows for virtualized NVMe devices to be used by virtual machines (VMs), thereby improving the utilization of storage resources. However, traditional software-based solutions have flexibility benefits but often come at the cost of performance degradation or high CPU overhead. On the other hand, hardware-assisted solutions offer high performance and low CPU usage, but their adoption is often limited by the need for special hardware support or the requirement for new hardware development. In this paper, we propose LightIOV, a novel software-based NVMe virtualization mechanism that achieves high performance and scalability without consuming valuable CPU resources and without requiring special hardware support. LightIOV can support thousands of VMs on each server. The key idea behind LightIOV is NVMe hardware I/O queues passthrough, which enables VMs to directly access I/O queues of NVMe devices, thus eliminating virtualization overhead and providing near-native performance. Results from our experiments show that LightIOV can provide comparable performance to VFIO, with an IOPS of 97.6%-100.2% of VFIO. Furthermore, in high-density VMs environments, LightIOV achieves 31.4% lower latency than SPDK-Vhost when running 200 VMs, and an improvement of 27.1% in OPS performance in real-world applications

Estudo do impacto da virtualização de hardware num nó de uma organização distribuída: o estudo de caso da Administração Regional de Saúde do Alentejo

Dissertação apresentada para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de mestre em Sistemas de Informação OrganizacionaisO âmbito deste trabalho é, numa primeira parte, desenvolver um conteúdo mais teórico, para que desta forma se consiga ter uma noção mais exata da virtualização. A rápida evolução das TIC, bem como a sua constante mutação, originou uma evolução da capacidade de processamento, armazenamento e de comunicação muito significativa. O processamento de dados nas organizações é realizado em ambientes diversificados de trabalho que, no entanto, são complementares entre si. A virtualização oferece um ambiente uniforme e muito idêntico ao das máquinas físicas, disponibilizando o sistema operativo, aplicações e serviços de rede de uma forma totalmente isolada e independente. Esta técnica tem vindo a ganhar notoriedade em infraestruturas de TIC pois permite consolidar servidores edesktops, reduzindo custos, melhorando a segurança e implementando atolerância a possíveis falhas.Tem igualmente o intuito de fornecer conceitos básicos da virtualização, formas de implementação, vantagens e desvantagens e tecnologias de virtualização. Numa segunda parte analisa-se o impacto que a implementação da virtualização provoca numa organização, através do estudo de caso do Centro de Saúde de Vendas Novas e replicar para os restantes centros de saúde e extensões do distrito de Évora. Neste trabalho são igualmente identificadas as ferramentas a serem adotadas para a virtualização dos desktops; a opinião dos colaboradores no centro de saúde e a continuidade de negócio. Na sequência da análise feita à forma escolhida para a implementação da virtualização é apresentada uma proposta de instalação de um cluster por balanceamento de carga de rede

Smart Resource Sharing for Concurrency and Security

Different layers of the computer system, from the low-level hardware accelerators and networks-on-chip (NoC) in multi-core systems, to the upper-level operating systems and software applications, rely on the sharing of hardware computing resources. Unfortunately such sharing, when not carefully managed, can introduce a host of protection problems and sources of information leakage. We describe a set of methods by which it is possible to systematically scale performance via hardware sharing without exacerbating security properties by being aware of the design and characteristics of individual layers and components. The key to this is efficiently dealing with security vulnerabilities introduced by sharing in terms of time and space through the creation of new security-conscious sharing interfaces. In a systematic way is to first define coordination techniques into more detailed patterns, and by bridging the gap of less efficient universal measures with provably more performant and secure patterns.Specifically we demonstrate the usefulness of a sharing pattern for hardware and software systems where separation is of concern (interference and timing channel mitigation, etc). The most important insight is that in order to fully utilize computing resources (to improve performance and availability), the entities that share these resources must coordinate in a pre-calculated way. More dynamic approaches to improve performance and concurrency are likely to introduce new interference in the system. While we show that certain static scheduling measures in lower level hardware such as networks-on-chip can provably eliminate timing channels, the dynamic nature of software systems makes covert channels harder to be confined. Besides, software systems also face other types of security problems beyond side channels. To improve concurrency and performance without exacerbating security requires a slightly different approach.To study the obstacles that hinder software applications' scaling in a system because of security concerns, we delve into the Android operating system and its appification ecosystem structure. A prime avenue for attack is introduced because of its distributed sharing eco-pattern. We propose a centralized approach with a single reliable service as a method to enable computation reuse among applications. The proposed centralization technique favors well-protected application-to-system communications over vulnerable application-to-application communications. Thus not only computation concurrency is boosted but also the possibility of an app being attacked through the attack-prone Inter-Component Calls (ICCs) due to possible distributed computation sharing is eliminated. This approach further enables improvements to security with the addition of a novel application-centric grouping for isolation. We show through a prototype on Android how our approach supports and protects inter-app resource sharing, while improving concurrency at scale

Virtualization techniques for memory resource exploitation

Cloud infrastructures have become indispensable in our daily lives with the rise of cloud-based services offered by companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and many others. These cloud infrastructures use a large numbers of servers provisioned with their own computing resources. Each of these servers use a piece of software, called the Hypervisor (``HV''), that allows them to create multiple virtual instances of the server's physical computing resources and abstract them into "Virtual Machines'' (VMs). A VM runs an Operating System, which in turn runs the applications. The VMs within the servers generate varying memory demand behavior. When the demand increases, costly operations such as (virtual) disk accesses and/or VM migrations can occur. As a result, it is necessary to optimize the utilization of the local memory resources within a single computing server. However, pressure on the memory resources can still increase, making it necessary to migrate the VM to a different server with larger memory or add more memory to the same server. At this point, it is important to consider that some of the servers in the cloud infrastructure might have memory resources that they are not using. Considering the possibility to make memory available to the server, new architectures have been introduced that provide hardware support to enable servers to share their memory capacity. This thesis presents multiple contributions to the memory management problem. First, it addresses the problem of optimizing memory resources in a virtualized server through different types of memory abstractions. Two full contributions are presented for managing memory within a single server called SmarTmem and CARLEMM. In this respect, a third contribution is also presented, called CAVMem, that works as the foundation for CARLEMM. Second, this thesis presents two contributions for memory capacity aggregation across multiple servers, offering two mechanisms called GV-Tmem and vMCA, this latter being based on GV-Tmem but with significant enhancements. These mechanisms distribute the server's total memory within a single-server and globally across computing servers using a user-space process with high-level memory management policies.Las infraestructuras para la nube se han vuelto indispensables en nuestras vidas diarias con la proliferación de los servicios ofrecidos por compañías como Facebook, Google, Amazon entre otras. Estas infraestructuras utilizan una gran cantidad de servidores proveídos con sus propios recursos computacionales. Cada unos de estos servidores utilizan un software, llamado el Hipervisor (“HV”), que les permite crear múltiples instancias virtuales de los recursos físicos de computación del servidor y abstraerlos en “Máquinas Virtuales” (VMs). Una VM ejecuta un Sistema Operativo (OS), el cual a su vez ejecuta aplicaciones. Las VMs dentro de los servidores generan un comportamiento variable de demanda de memoria. Cuando la demanda de memoria aumenta, operaciones costosas como accesos al disco (virtual) y/o migraciones de VMs pueden ocurrir. Como resultado, es necesario optimizar la utilización de los recursos de memoria locales dentro del servidor. Sin embargo, la demanda por memoria puede seguir aumentando, haciendo necesario que la VM migre a otro servidor o que se añada más memoria al servidor. En este punto, es importante considerar que algunos servidores podrían tener recursos de memoria que no están utilizando. Considerando la posibilidad de hacer más memoria disponible a los servidores que lo necesitan, nuevas arquitecturas de servidores han sido introducidos que brindan el soporte de hardware necesario para habilitar que los servidores puedan compartir su capacidad de memoria. Esta tesis presenta múltiples contribuciones para el problema de manejo de memoria. Primero, se enfoca en el problema de optimizar los recursos de memoria en un servidor virtualizado a través de distintos tipos de abstracciones de memoria. Dos contribuciones son presentadas para administrar memoria de manera automática dentro de un servidor virtualizado, llamadas SmarTmem y CARLEMM. En este contexto, una tercera contribución es presentada, llamada CAVMem, que proporciona los fundamentos para el desarrollo de CARLEMM. Segundo, la tesis presenta dos contribuciones enfocadas en la agregación de capacidad de memoria a través de múltiples servidores, ofreciendo dos mecanismos llamados GV-Tmem y vMCA, siendo este último basado en GV-Tmem pero con mejoras significativas. Estos mecanismos administran la memoria total de un servidor a nivel local y de manera global a lo largo de los servidores de la infraestructura de nube utilizando un proceso de usuario que implementa políticas de manejo de ..

Virtualization techniques for memory resource exploitation

Cloud infrastructures have become indispensable in our daily lives with the rise of cloud-based services offered by companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and many others. These cloud infrastructures use a large numbers of servers provisioned with their own computing resources. Each of these servers use a piece of software, called the Hypervisor (``HV''), that allows them to create multiple virtual instances of the server's physical computing resources and abstract them into "Virtual Machines'' (VMs). A VM runs an Operating System, which in turn runs the applications. The VMs within the servers generate varying memory demand behavior. When the demand increases, costly operations such as (virtual) disk accesses and/or VM migrations can occur. As a result, it is necessary to optimize the utilization of the local memory resources within a single computing server. However, pressure on the memory resources can still increase, making it necessary to migrate the VM to a different server with larger memory or add more memory to the same server. At this point, it is important to consider that some of the servers in the cloud infrastructure might have memory resources that they are not using. Considering the possibility to make memory available to the server, new architectures have been introduced that provide hardware support to enable servers to share their memory capacity. This thesis presents multiple contributions to the memory management problem. First, it addresses the problem of optimizing memory resources in a virtualized server through different types of memory abstractions. Two full contributions are presented for managing memory within a single server called SmarTmem and CARLEMM. In this respect, a third contribution is also presented, called CAVMem, that works as the foundation for CARLEMM. Second, this thesis presents two contributions for memory capacity aggregation across multiple servers, offering two mechanisms called GV-Tmem and vMCA, this latter being based on GV-Tmem but with significant enhancements. These mechanisms distribute the server's total memory within a single-server and globally across computing servers using a user-space process with high-level memory management policies.Las infraestructuras para la nube se han vuelto indispensables en nuestras vidas diarias con la proliferación de los servicios ofrecidos por compañías como Facebook, Google, Amazon entre otras. Estas infraestructuras utilizan una gran cantidad de servidores proveídos con sus propios recursos computacionales. Cada unos de estos servidores utilizan un software, llamado el Hipervisor (“HV”), que les permite crear múltiples instancias virtuales de los recursos físicos de computación del servidor y abstraerlos en “Máquinas Virtuales” (VMs). Una VM ejecuta un Sistema Operativo (OS), el cual a su vez ejecuta aplicaciones. Las VMs dentro de los servidores generan un comportamiento variable de demanda de memoria. Cuando la demanda de memoria aumenta, operaciones costosas como accesos al disco (virtual) y/o migraciones de VMs pueden ocurrir. Como resultado, es necesario optimizar la utilización de los recursos de memoria locales dentro del servidor. Sin embargo, la demanda por memoria puede seguir aumentando, haciendo necesario que la VM migre a otro servidor o que se añada más memoria al servidor. En este punto, es importante considerar que algunos servidores podrían tener recursos de memoria que no están utilizando. Considerando la posibilidad de hacer más memoria disponible a los servidores que lo necesitan, nuevas arquitecturas de servidores han sido introducidos que brindan el soporte de hardware necesario para habilitar que los servidores puedan compartir su capacidad de memoria. Esta tesis presenta múltiples contribuciones para el problema de manejo de memoria. Primero, se enfoca en el problema de optimizar los recursos de memoria en un servidor virtualizado a través de distintos tipos de abstracciones de memoria. Dos contribuciones son presentadas para administrar memoria de manera automática dentro de un servidor virtualizado, llamadas SmarTmem y CARLEMM. En este contexto, una tercera contribución es presentada, llamada CAVMem, que proporciona los fundamentos para el desarrollo de CARLEMM. Segundo, la tesis presenta dos contribuciones enfocadas en la agregación de capacidad de memoria a través de múltiples servidores, ofreciendo dos mecanismos llamados GV-Tmem y vMCA, siendo este último basado en GV-Tmem pero con mejoras significativas. Estos mecanismos administran la memoria total de un servidor a nivel local y de manera global a lo largo de los servidores de la infraestructura de nube utilizando un proceso de usuario que implementa políticas de manejo de ...Postprint (published version

Virtualization techniques for memory resource exploitation

Cloud infrastructures have become indispensable in our daily lives with the rise of cloud-based services offered by companies like Facebook, Google, Amazon and many others. These cloud infrastructures use a large numbers of servers provisioned with their own computing resources. Each of these servers use a piece of software, called the Hypervisor (``HV''), that allows them to create multiple virtual instances of the server's physical computing resources and abstract them into "Virtual Machines'' (VMs). A VM runs an Operating System, which in turn runs the applications. The VMs within the servers generate varying memory demand behavior. When the demand increases, costly operations such as (virtual) disk accesses and/or VM migrations can occur. As a result, it is necessary to optimize the utilization of the local memory resources within a single computing server. However, pressure on the memory resources can still increase, making it necessary to migrate the VM to a different server with larger memory or add more memory to the same server. At this point, it is important to consider that some of the servers in the cloud infrastructure might have memory resources that they are not using. Considering the possibility to make memory available to the server, new architectures have been introduced that provide hardware support to enable servers to share their memory capacity. This thesis presents multiple contributions to the memory management problem. First, it addresses the problem of optimizing memory resources in a virtualized server through different types of memory abstractions. Two full contributions are presented for managing memory within a single server called SmarTmem and CARLEMM. In this respect, a third contribution is also presented, called CAVMem, that works as the foundation for CARLEMM. Second, this thesis presents two contributions for memory capacity aggregation across multiple servers, offering two mechanisms called GV-Tmem and vMCA, this latter being based on GV-Tmem but with significant enhancements. These mechanisms distribute the server's total memory within a single-server and globally across computing servers using a user-space process with high-level memory management policies.Las infraestructuras para la nube se han vuelto indispensables en nuestras vidas diarias con la proliferación de los servicios ofrecidos por compañías como Facebook, Google, Amazon entre otras. Estas infraestructuras utilizan una gran cantidad de servidores proveídos con sus propios recursos computacionales. Cada unos de estos servidores utilizan un software, llamado el Hipervisor (“HV”), que les permite crear múltiples instancias virtuales de los recursos físicos de computación del servidor y abstraerlos en “Máquinas Virtuales” (VMs). Una VM ejecuta un Sistema Operativo (OS), el cual a su vez ejecuta aplicaciones. Las VMs dentro de los servidores generan un comportamiento variable de demanda de memoria. Cuando la demanda de memoria aumenta, operaciones costosas como accesos al disco (virtual) y/o migraciones de VMs pueden ocurrir. Como resultado, es necesario optimizar la utilización de los recursos de memoria locales dentro del servidor. Sin embargo, la demanda por memoria puede seguir aumentando, haciendo necesario que la VM migre a otro servidor o que se añada más memoria al servidor. En este punto, es importante considerar que algunos servidores podrían tener recursos de memoria que no están utilizando. Considerando la posibilidad de hacer más memoria disponible a los servidores que lo necesitan, nuevas arquitecturas de servidores han sido introducidos que brindan el soporte de hardware necesario para habilitar que los servidores puedan compartir su capacidad de memoria. Esta tesis presenta múltiples contribuciones para el problema de manejo de memoria. Primero, se enfoca en el problema de optimizar los recursos de memoria en un servidor virtualizado a través de distintos tipos de abstracciones de memoria. Dos contribuciones son presentadas para administrar memoria de manera automática dentro de un servidor virtualizado, llamadas SmarTmem y CARLEMM. En este contexto, una tercera contribución es presentada, llamada CAVMem, que proporciona los fundamentos para el desarrollo de CARLEMM. Segundo, la tesis presenta dos contribuciones enfocadas en la agregación de capacidad de memoria a través de múltiples servidores, ofreciendo dos mecanismos llamados GV-Tmem y vMCA, siendo este último basado en GV-Tmem pero con mejoras significativas. Estos mecanismos administran la memoria total de un servidor a nivel local y de manera global a lo largo de los servidores de la infraestructura de nube utilizando un proceso de usuario que implementa políticas de manejo de ..