ADVANCED SERVER VIRTUALIZATION VMware and Microsoft Platforms in the Virtual Data center phần 10 ppt

Related Products and Open Source Projects  661  e core strength of the way that BOCHS has been developed is that it has been written in C++. By doing this, Kevin Lawton, the original author of BOCHS, laid down a great deal of portability.  ere is usually a price for por- tability and this case is no exception. BOCHS does not provide a high-perfor- mance platform, which does not make it a good candidate for the enterprise. BOCHS delivers poor performance from nearly all aspects; however the fact that it can run almost any x86 operating system may outweigh the poor performance in certain situations. Applications where BOCHS may be an excellent solution include support of very old operating systems that require outdated legacy hardware or develop- ment environments that are used for things such as hardware device driver de- bugging, simulation of hardware or operating system development.  e ability to add custom virtual hardware monitoring hooks into the source code is some- thing that may be incredibly valuable. Another incredible feature is the ability to simulate certain events, such as hardware faults occurring through custom code.  is will provide information that would be very diffi cult and time consuming if it was attempted with physical hardware. All in all, BOCHS is a project to watch as it is being advanced daily and is making considerable strides in adding additional functionality and options. QEMU  e QEMU (http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu) project is an open source emu- lator providing the ability to run on a wide variety of platforms by doing dy- namic translation of native CPU instructions (see Figure 28.6).  e dynamic translation enables QEMU to provide a fast and effi cient emulation by break- ing down the processor instructions into small blocks of atomic instructions.  ese instructions are then processed, cached in a buff er, and then the responses returned as if the native processor had acted upon them.  is project may not Figure 28.6 QEMU. Marshall_AU3931_C028.indd 661Marshall_AU3931_C028.indd 661 3/31/2006 3:41:15 PM3/31/2006 3:41:15 PM 662  Advanced Server Virtualization seem to fall into the virtualization camp; however there are two outside factors that have been taken into consideration.  e fi rst factor is that additional work has been done to speed up the per- formance of QEMU in an attempt to match the speed and performance of sev- eral of the commercial products available.  e heart of this project is called the QEMU Accelerator Module and it is an additional virtualization layer.  is vir- tualization layer provides a signifi cant performance increases and brings QEMU into the fold as a player in the virtualization space.  is also shows that the combination of technologies from several of these sources can provide comple- mentary benefi ts if implemented properly.  e second factor, which builds on the fi rst, is the fact that Win4Lin Pro also leverages the same QEMU Accelerator Module that the QEMU project uses.  is shows that even a thin virtualization layer can have multiple uses in the commercial space. It is important to note that the QEMU Accelerator Module is given away free to individuals, but is actually proprietary or closed source. Developed by Fabrice Bellard in France, the author of QEMU, Bellard licensed the QEMU Accelerator to Win4Lin and is at present willing to license the tech- nology to other commercial entities based on negotiated terms.  e QEMU Accelerator Module actually passes through many of the com- mands that are normally dynamically translated.  is provides the same strength and similar technical implementations to that of the VMware and Microsoft virtualization solutions.  e weakness of this solution is the lack of support by the commercial vendors and the mixed compatibility depending on what host and guest operating system is used. User-Mode Linux and VServer User-Mode Linux (http://user-mode-linux.sourceforge.net) and VServer (http://linux-vserver.org) are more of isolation mechanisms than complete com- puter isolation style virtualization.  ey simply off er a way to install and protect several diff erent distribution instances of Linux from each other. Both provide equivalent functionality and performance.  e advantage is packing on a great deal of Linux installations onto a single server, which is incredibly advantageous for entities such as hosting providers.  e disadvantages are primarily the in- ability to run Microsoft Windows-based operating systems or other operating systems not Linux-based. Another disadvantage is the requirement that all ver- sions of Linux must support the native hardware confi guration and processor to run and operate properly. Xen  e Xen (http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen) project started out at Cambridge University in the UK (see Figure 28.7). Xen is a hypervisor- Marshall_AU3931_C028.indd 662Marshall_AU3931_C028.indd 662 3/31/2006 3:41:15 PM3/31/2006 3:41:15 PM Related Products and Open Source Projects  663 based technology, otherwise known as a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM). Like VMware’s ESX Server, Xen runs on the bare metal hardware with no supporting operating system beneath it. Unlike VMware’s ESX Server however, Xen uses a solution called paravirtualization. Paravirtualization diff erentiates itself from standard virtualization in that in- stead of adjusting the virtualization platform to support diff erent guest operating systems and their behaviors (specifi cally the processor instructions they invoke), the guest operating systems themselves are altered to support the virtualization platform beneath them.  ere are several advantages to this approach; the fi rst is the ability to get at or near physical hardware performance inside of the virtual machines themselves.  e second is the rapid portability that this provides— there are no special circumstances to deal with, all guests operate the same.  e downside is also pretty signifi cant. Because of its need for changes to the guest operating system, it can only support Linux and BSD variants at this time.  ere are other ports taking place, however the major guest operating system, Micro- soft Windows, cannot be altered in this fashion because it is closed source. Xen is planning to off er many new capabilities in their new release includ- ing full SMP support, live virtual machine migrations, scalability to 8TB of memory, performance improvements, and support for more QoS (Quality of Service) functions. Xen is poised to become a major player in the virtualiza- tion space. To date Xen has been able to also leverage the work of several other projects including BOCHS and QEMU. By leveraging these technologies, Xen has been able to implement many performance optimizations already created by these two projects. Summary  ere are many virtualization solutions available in both the commercial and open source areas, however each has limitations. If consideration is being given Figure 28.7 Xen. Marshall_AU3931_C028.indd 663Marshall_AU3931_C028.indd 663 3/31/2006 3:41:16 PM3/31/2006 3:41:16 PM 664  Advanced Server Virtualization to one of these solutions over the two standards, VMware and Microsoft’s vir- tualization solutions, then it is important to learn as much as possible through thorough investigation, research, and testing, before making any decisions.  e most promising solutions on the commercial side are Win4Lin and Virtual Iron, however as of today, Virtual Iron VFe appears to be getting the most press al- though it has not been released. Win4Lin Pro is released and has been around for a while and is generally not well known.  e most promising solutions on the open source side are BOCHS, QEMU, and Xen. Xen has a commercial as- pect through a newly funded company named Xen Source that appears to have a chance at doing for Xen what Red Hat has done for Linux. All of these solutions are unsupported by Microsoft as of this time.  erefore it is not recommended that any of these virtualization solutions listed above be used for a production data center to run Microsoft Windows-based guest oper- ating systems. Microsoft will generally not provide any support for its operating systems running in these virtual machines unless the problem can be reproduced on a physical server. Marshall_AU3931_C028.indd 664Marshall_AU3931_C028.indd 664 3/31/2006 3:41:16 PM3/31/2006 3:41:16 PM 665 Chapter 29 Other Virtualization Resources In addition to the products and projects described in chapter 28 and throughout the book, there are also some third-party products and services, both large and small, available to address niche areas of server virtualization.  is chapter pro- vides a brief look at the resources provided by the major virtualization vendors along with other resources being made available through the Internet that deal with virtualization in one form or another. Product Vendor Resources Microsoft http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserversystem/virtualserver/default.mspx  e Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 Web page provides some of the most up-to-date information on the product (see Figure 29.1). It off ers a number of relevant technical links along with links to numerous resource fi les. Microsoft provides many diff erent ways to research and fi nd answers to Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 technical questions. Newsgroup support, a listing of the most frequently asked questions (FAQs), a number of product and technical white papers on the product, Web casts, online documentation and downloads that include product updates and add-on software are also provided.  ere are also several other valuable links created from Microsoft insiders on their own personal blogs.  ese blogs represent a rich source of technical information around Virtual Server. It should be noted that this resource is not offi cially sanctioned by Microsoft. Many of these blog links can be found at http://www.vmbook.info/links. Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 665Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 665 3/31/2006 3:42:11 PM3/31/2006 3:42:11 PM 666  Advanced Server Virtualization VMware http://www.vmware.com/  e VMware Web site provides a tremendous amount of resources relating to the various product off erings made by VMware (see Figure 29.2).  ey off er news and events that customers of their products will more than likely be inter- ested in hearing about.  ey also off er the latest updates and security patches for all of their products in a download section. But perhaps the most important area on VMware’s Web site is the VMware Technology Network (VMTN) page.  is technical and community resource page provides links to documentation, FAQs, technical resources in the form of news and white papers, and developer resources in the form of code and SDK packages. VMware is also a big propo- nent for information sharing.  e VMTN page provides for a searchable knowl- edge base as well as a discussion forum where users are able to post questions and receive answers from other users as well as from VMware employees.  is resource is probably the most likely place to fi nd answers to VMware product questions. Unfortunately, there can also be erroneous information posted by end users that must be waded through in order to fi nd the correct answer to the question. Figure 29.1 Microsoft. Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 666Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 666 3/31/2006 3:42:20 PM3/31/2006 3:42:20 PM Other Virtualization Resources  667 Xen http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/Research/SRG/netos/xen/ Xen is an open-source virtualization project that was created at the University of Cambridge.  e Cambridge Web site makes a number of resources available for the product (see Figure 29.3). It off ers the standard documentation and FAQ’s for the product, along with source code, and papers and presentations describ- ing Xen’s design and architecture. Because the project is open-source, there are already numerous user-owned Web sites covering the product and the support Figure 29.2 VMware. Figure 29.3 Xen. Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 667Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 667 3/31/2006 3:42:22 PM3/31/2006 3:42:22 PM 668  Advanced Server Virtualization community is quickly growing with the incorporation of Xen’s paravirtualization technology into Red Hat Linux, SUSE, and other operating system vendors’ technology stacks. A simple Google of “Xen virtualization” will unveil a plethora of information and resources covering the product. For an in-depth listing of links and resources related to Xen, visit http://www.vmbook.info/links. Computer Associates http://www.ca.com/ Computer Associates off ers virtualization integration into their Unicenter Net- work and Systems Management (Unicenter NSM) package (see Figure 29.4). Unicenter NSM can now monitor the health and availability of virtual machines running on VMware and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005.  e product also pro- vides such features as policy-based automation, root-cause analysis, reporting, and role-specifi c visualization.  is software tool would appeal to current users of the Unicenter operations management software that are currently looking to implement server virtualization into their organization. Dunes http://www.dunes.ch/ Dunes enables IT personnel to perform what they do best by capturing and automating repetitive, tedious, and error-prone tasks.  e software solution they provide off ers a graphical interface used to program various operations into a virtual infrastructure (see Figure 29.5). Dunes Virtual Service Orchestrator (Dunes VS-O) is a virtual server software solution for VMware VirtualCen- ter and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005. Dunes VS-O is about capturing best practices and business policies to help make the data center more effi cient and adaptive to changing business practices. By utilizing one of their other products, Dunes VS-M, a Microsoft Virtual Server environment can be centrally managed from a single console. Dunes VS-M gives a logical representation of the entire Figure 29.4 Computer Associates. Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 668Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 668 3/31/2006 3:42:23 PM3/31/2006 3:42:23 PM Other Virtualization Resources  669 Microsoft Virtual Server infrastructure.  e product is easily deployed without the need for agents being required on the host servers. Both products are avail- able for installation on a Windows operating system. IBM http://www.ibm.com/ IBM is off ering several solutions around virtualization including the IBM Vir- tual Machine Manager and the IBM Virtualization Engine Suite (see Figure 29.6).  e IBM Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) is an extension to IBM Director that provides management of both physical and virtual machines all from a single console. VMM allows for the management of both VMware ESX Server and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 environments using IBM Director. To create an even more advanced virtual machine management environment, VMM can also integrate VMware VirtualCenter with IBM Director. Another product off ering, the IBM Virtualization Engine, enables individual distributed resources across the enterprise to function cohesively as a single pool or entity.  e product allows for greater effi ciency when accessing and managing resourc- es across the organization. IBM is clearly hedging its bets by diversifying and spreading their risk across multiple technologies.  ey have strategically aligned themselves with most of the major virtualization platform vendors, including: Figure 29.5 Dunes. Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 669Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 669 3/31/2006 3:42:24 PM3/31/2006 3:42:24 PM 670  Advanced Server Virtualization Microsoft, VMware, and Xen. IBM is still one of the few companies around that off ers a complete virtualization solution including hardware (server and storage), software, and services. Leostream http://www.leostream.com/ Leostream is a vendor agnostic virtualization management software company (see Figure 29.7). Leostream’s Virtual Host Desktop Controller is a manage- ment product that attempts to solve a wide range of problems facing today’s data centers: quality assurance, support, server consolidation, and disaster recovery. It contains features such as: performance monitoring and reporting, policy-based access control, fail-over for virtual and physical machines, and disaster recovery.  e product manages virtual servers running under VMware ESX Server, VM- ware GSX Server for Windows, and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 and is also compatible with VMware VirtualCenter. Additionally, Leostream off ers its own version of P2V aptly named P>V Direct 2.0. Its claim to fame is the ability to perform a conversion directly from a running Windows server to a virtual server without the need for a CD, fl oppy disk, or a reboot. Its biggest drawback—it Figure 29.6 IBM. Figure 29.7 Leostream. Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 670Marshall_AU3931_C029.indd 670 3/31/2006 3:42:25 PM3/31/2006 3:42:25 PM [...]... to virtual machines or using the management interface, this log file may help in diagnosing the problem On a Windows host, the log file is identified as vmware- serverd.log and is located in %WINDIR%\Temp On a Linux host, the log file is also identified as vmwareserverd.log but is located in /var/log /vmware VMware GSX Server and VMware Virtual Machine Console Installation Log Files On the host server, VMware. .. design and offers articles, aggregated virtualization industry news, and community resources It is an online-only magazine focused on fostering community involvement in the development of new ideas, uses, and applications for all virtualization technologies, including application virtualization, desktop virtualization, network virtualization, server virtualization, storage virtualization The MiniMe Project... applies to all virtual hard disks that are attached to the virtual machine While the virtual machine is running, any changes made to the virtual disk are written to the vud file; reads occur from the original virtual hard disk VSV The vsv file is created automatically when a virtual machine is suspended The file contains the entire state of the virtual machine Once suspended, the virtual machine is in a hibernation... file that stores metadata describing the virtual machine’s configuration information The file is created when a new virtual machine is created, and it contains the settings that make up the virtual machine The contents can be modified by using the virtual machine settings editor or by using any third-party text editor VUD The undo disk file is created automatically when a virtual machine configured with Undo... C:\Documents and Settings\\Local Settings\Temp On a Linux host, the log file is identified as locations and can be found in /etc /vmware VMware GSX Server Events on Windows GSX Server also sends information to the Event Viewer on a Microsoft Windows host server When troubleshooting, the Event Viewer may help provide insight by providing the following types of information: 1 Changes to a virtual machine’s... state—was the virtual machine powered off or suspended? 2 The addition or removal of a virtual machine from the host’s inventory list—was the machine removed? 3 The deletion of a virtual machine from the GSX Server system—was the virtual machine deleted along with its disk files? 4 Messages and warnings from the GSX Sever host along with responses to the messages and warnings—when the host server prompts... immediately for the affected virtual machine It is important to save off this file before the virtual machine is powered back on The log file is located in the same directory as the affected virtual machine’s configuration file and is named vmware. log VMkernal Warnings The VMkernel warnings log file is a good resource when experiencing problems with the ESX server or the virtual machines From the console, the data is... across the Internet The resources discussed in this chapter are but a brief look at the many informational Web sites, and commercial and public projects and products being offered to help fully utilize and understand server virtualization These are only a select few of the server virtualization resources that are currently available and the list is continuously growing Please visit http://www.vmbook info/... information about the partitions that the virtual machine can access PLN/DAT The pln and dat files are a legacy virtual machine disk file In order to create a virtual disk file outside of the VMware GSX console, VMware supplied a legacy utility named “plainmaker.exe” The pln file contains information about the virtual disk while the actual virtual machine data is found in a series of dat files VMX The vmx file... VMbook.info is the official Web site supporting this book, Advanced Server Virtualization, VMware and Microsoft Platforms in the Virtual Data Center Any errata, additional supporting materials, and resources for this book will be posted on the Web site The Web site can also be used to contact the authors, if necessary, and provide any direct feedback VMware s Back http://chitchat.at.infoseek.co.jp /vmware/ . ered. VMbook.info http://www.vmbook.info/ VMbook.info is the offi cial Web site supporting this book, Advanced Server Virtualization, VMware and Microsoft Platforms in the Virtual Data Center. Any. fail-over for virtual and physical machines, and disaster recovery.  e product manages virtual servers running under VMware ESX Server, VM- ware GSX Server for Windows, and Microsoft Virtual Server. called paravirtualization. Paravirtualization diff erentiates itself from standard virtualization in that in- stead of adjusting the virtualization platform to support diff erent guest operating systems