Category: virtualization2.0

Discuss Virtualization 2.0 ”; Previous Next Virtualization 2.0 is a technology that helps users to install different Operating Systems on a hardware. They are completely separated and independent from each other. Virtualization hides the physical characteristics of computing resources from their users, their applications, or end users. This is an introductory tutorial, which covers the basics of Virtualization 2.0 and explains how to deal with its various components and sub-components. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Virtualization 2.0 – Common Uses ”; Previous Next There are several types of uses in virtualization, but the most commonly used are Server Virtualization and Client Desktops Virtualization. We have already discussed their advantages in the previous chapter and why are they used widely. Virtualizing Desktop Computers Client virtualization also called as VDI runs the entire desktop environment within a centralized server. All processing is done within the server. Client devices are typically thin clients that serve as an end node to connect I/O peripherals such as keyboard, mouse, a display, audio connectors and even USB ports over the LAN. As discussed earlier, a thin client hardware is a computer terminal, which provides I/O for a keyboard, mouse, monitor, jacks for sound peripherals, and open ports for USB devices. For example – Printer, Flash Drive, Web Cam, Card Reader, Smartphone, etc. Some thin clients include legacy serial and/or parallel ports to support older devices such as Receipt Printers, Scales, Time Clocks, etc. Thin client software typically consists of a GUI (graphical user interface), Cloud Access Agents (for e.g. RDP, ICA, PCoIP), a local web browser, terminal emulations (in some cases) and a basic set of local utilities. The largest producers of thin clients are HP, Dell and IBM. Running a Specific Program Solution One of the best software known for Desktop Virtualization is XenApp & XenDesktop. Deliver Windows, Linux, Web and SaaS applications or full virtual desktops to workers on any device and anywhere. More information can be found on https://www.citrix.com/products/xenapp-xendesktop/ Another major provider is VMware with its platform called VMware Horizon 7. To purchase and understand all their features and specifications, click on the following link https://www.vmware.com/products/horizon.html Microsoft is another provider with a combination of Remote desktop services along with Hyper-V. For any further Information on this, click on the following link https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windowsserver/ee236407.aspx Setting up Test and Development Environments One of the most powerful features of a virtualized environment is the possibility to create labs for different approaches in a minute, especially in software development and then to import the same infrastructure in production. Regarding the test environment, it brings cross-platform functionality to your dev-test environment and uses your preferred coding language to build natively. It tests your applications on the devices and platforms you use today: from Linux, Windows to iOS and Android. All the features mentioned in the above can be done through private cloud or public cloud. It depends on what we would like to use as per the requirement. You should take into consideration the human resources with which you have to manage this cloud and the budget that you want to spend. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Virtualization 2.0 – Hardware ”; Previous Next In this chapter, we will discuss various components of hardware such as CPU, Memory, Storage and Networking. Understanding Virtual CPU When we install a hypervisor, each physical CPU is abstracted into virtual CPUs. This divides the available CPU cycles for each core and allows multiple VMs to “time share” a given physical processor core. Generally talking, the hypervisor typically assigns one workload per vCPU (per core). If the workloads on a server need more CPU cycles, it is better to deploy fewer VMs on a particular virtual CPU. Let us consider the following example to understand the logic of virtual CPU. I have a physical server with two processors (CPU 1 and CPU 2) and each of them has four physical cores. In total, we have 2 * 4 = 8 physical cores. Based on some calculations our hypervisor provided for each physical core, we can get 5-10 vCPUs. In total, we will have [8 physical cores * (5 to 10 vCPUs)] 40-80 vCPUs, which means that we can assign a maximum of 80 vCPUs to virtual machines. Understanding Virtual Memory Virtual Memory in simple words is the RAM of the machine. The memory resource settings for a virtual machine determines how much of the host”s memory is allocated to the virtual machine. The virtual hardware memory size determines how much memory is available to applications that run in the virtual machine. A virtual machine cannot benefit from more memory resources than its configured virtual hardware memory size. The ESXi hosts limit the memory resource use to the maximum amount useful for the virtual machine, so that you can accept the default of unlimited memory resources. You can add, change, and configure virtual machine memory resources or options to enhance virtual machine performance. You can set most of the memory parameters while creating the virtual machine or it can also be done after the Guest Operating System is installed. Most of the hypervisors require to power off the virtual machine before changing the settings. In the following schematic illustration, you can see that the total physical memory is divided between two virtual machines. Understanding Virtual Storage Storage virtualization is the pooling of physical storage (Data cluster) from multiple network storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device that is managed from a central console. We cannot assign more storage to virtual machines that data cluster offers physically. You will see these extensions on the end of a file. Of all the files used as part of a virtual machine, different hypervisors like to use different file types. Some of the more common are VDI, VHDX, VMDK and HDD. In the following example, we have a data cluster of 12 TB in total and four virtual machines to which we have allocated storage to each of them. In total, the maximum storage allocated to them is 12 TB. Understanding Virtual Networking We will discuss this with a simple example as to how virtual networking done. We have Virtual Machine 1, 2, 3 and 4 running on the same host. They would like to send the network traffic back and forth. This is done by virtual networking cards as shown in the following illustration (vNIC), which connects virtually with a virtual switch (vSwitch) that is created by the hypervisor. This virtual switch communicates with a physical card of the server (pNIC), which is connected with a physical switch (pSwitch) and then communicates with the rest of the network equipment. Please see the following schematically done up scenario. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Virtualization 2.0 – Openstack ”; Previous Next In this chapter, we will discuss regarding Openstack and its role in Virtualization. Understanding Openstack OpenStack is a software for building and managing cloud-computing platforms for public and private clouds. Openstack has one of the biggest communities. It is managed by the OpenStack Foundation, a non-profit organization that oversees both development and community building. Its official webpage is – https://www.openstack.org/. OpenStack is used to deploy virtual machines and other instances that handle different tasks for managing a cloud environment. OpenStack is considered as – Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). Based on Openstack, please see the following schematic illustration, which describes how it is managed. Source − https://www.openstack.org/ Openstack platform is managed by a web UI dashboard. It comprises of nine Core key components. These key concepts are described in detail as follows − Nova is a computing engine. It is used for deploying and managing large numbers of virtual machines. Swift is a storage system for objects and files. Cinder is a block storage component. It accesses specific locations on a disk drive. Neutron provides the networking capability. Horizon is the dashboard of Openstack. It is the only graphical interface (WEB UI). Keystone provides identity services. It is essentially a central list of all the users. Glance provides image services to OpenStack. In this case, “images” refers to images (or virtual copies) of hard disks. Ceilometer provides telemetry services, which allow the cloud to provide billing services to individual users of the cloud. Heat allows developers to store the requirements of a cloud application in a file that defines what resources are necessary for that application. The release versions of Openstack are explained in the following illustration. Installing Openstack As Openstack is an open source platform, there are many ways to install and deploy it through different software distributions. Each one of them adds their own value to the cloud operating system. For a new system administrator, who wants to play with Openstack will get pre-installed ISO images of the Openstack platform. They can be downloaded from the following link https://docs.openstack.org/image-guide/obtain-images.html To install them manually, the main distributors are − Ubuntu − https://www.ubuntu.com/cloud/openstack Red Hat − https://www.rdoproject.org/ Suse − https://www.suse.com/products/suse-openstack-cloud/ We must understand that Openstack is for enterprise environment and to install it we should have the following hardware requirements. Installation Requirements The installation requirements for Openstack are as follows − A minimum of 5 machines with the following roles − 1 machine for the MAAS server. 1 machine for the Autopilot. 3 or more machines for the cloud − At least one must have 2 NICs. At least 3 must have 2 disks. A dedicated switch to create a private cloud LAN. Internet access through a router on that LAN. For this laboratory, we have a virtual machine and we will install Devstack. It is designed for installation on a single laptop, PC or VM. It includes the raw upstream code for development evaluation. It is supported on − Ubuntu 14.04/16.04 Fedora 23/24 CentOS/RHEL 7 Debian and OpenSUSE The link for this version is – https://docs.openstack.org/devstack/latest/#install-linux Installing Openstack on Ubuntu 14.04 For installing Openstack on Ubuntu 14.04, we should follow the steps given below. Step 1 − Download the installation script from the following link – https://git.openstack.org/cgit/openstack-dev/devstack Use this command – git clone https://git.openstack.org/openstack-dev/devstack Step 2 − Browse the folder Devstack by keying in the following command – $ cddevstack. Step 3 − Execute the file stack.sh with the following command ./stack.sh and installation process will continue as shown below − Step 4 − Enter your password. Step 5 − Now it will take about 15-20 minutes to finish the installation process, while it downloads and installs all the libraries. Step 6 − At the end of the installation, we will see the IP of the host, URL for managing it, username and password to administrate it. Step 7 − To sign in, you have to type in the browser: Host IP, username and password that we entered during the installation. Step 8 − In the main dashboard, you will see “Instances” overview. Step 9 − To create new instances or in simple words to create Virtual machines click on “Instances”. Step 10 − Click on “Launch Instances”. Step 11 − Fill in all the fields as shown below. Step 12 − We will see the instance created as shown in the following screenshot. Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;

Virtualization 2.0 – Useful Resources ”; Previous Next The following resources contain additional information on Virtualization 2.0. Please use them to get more in-depth knowledge on this. Useful Links on Virtualization 2.0 Virtualization 2.0 Wiki − Wikipedia Reference for Virtualization 2.0. Useful Books on Virtualization 2.0 To enlist your site on this page, please drop an email to [email protected] Print Page Previous Next Advertisements ”;