Microsoft Hyper-V Technology Analysis and Applications advantage

MicrosoftHyper-V Technology Analysis and Applications advantage

ABSTRACT

Hyper-V is ahypervisor, a major role is to manage the scheduling of virtual machine createdand run, and the virtualization of hardware resources. Hyper-V uses VSP / VSCarchitecture to solve driver / file system. Hyper-V IDC environment advantages.

Keywords:Hyper-V virtualization IDCenvironment

Hyper-V,codenamed Viridian, is a Hypervisor (hypervisor), its main role is to managethe scheduling of virtual machine created and run and provided the hardwareresources virtualization. Hyper-V is Microsoft along with Windows Server 2008latest server virtualization solutions. Compared with products such asMicrosoft's own Virtual PC, Virtual Server, Hyper-V has a very significantdifference, and competitors VMware Server / ESX Server compared are verydifferent: in the framework of Hyper-V is definitely a breakthrough Progress!

Hyper-V isclose to the hardware, in essence, a VMM (hypervisor), and at the level ofbefore Microsoft Virtual Server products, this is more like VMware ESX Serverseries, in fact, the Hyper-V belongs Microsoft's first bare-metalvirtualization product (Bare-Metal Virtualization). However, Hyper-V is veryspecial, in some infrastructure, Hyper-V and ESX Server are obviouslydifferent.

Hyper-V as avirtualization product, has a very special requirements: Processor must supportAMD-V or Intel VT technology, that is, the processor must havehardware-assisted virtualization technologies.

Require a hardwarecharacteristics strange thing for a virtualization product (requirements tosupport an instruction set is not), before Microsoft Virtual Server 2005R2 donot need this feature. This is only an optional feature for VMware products,unlike the Hyper-V as a rigid requirements. The processor does not supportVT/AMD- V, will not be able to run Hyper-V.

VT to solvethe traditional processor virtual machine by using the command conversionmethod in Ring 3 the Ring 0 privilege instruction will seriously affect theperformance problem. Hyper-V characteristics is the VT dependence and supportHyper-V architecture.

Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware ESX Server moresimilar are the Bare-Metal type, but their core architecture is significantlydifferent. Hyper-V is a micro-kernel architecture, ESX Server is a single-corearchitecture, Hyper-V to be better.

Both havedifferent? In the end who is better?

Monolithickernel and microkernel is actually the term of the operating system kernel, thekernel of the operating system - that part of the core functionality -microkernel (Micro kernel), single kernel (Monolithic the kernel, sometimescalled macro kernel Macro kernel). Similar packages in accordance with theform, and these terms are defined as follows:

Microkernel(Micro kernel) - in the micro-kernel, the most commonly used functions arecarefully selected design on one or a set of processes running in kernel mode,and most of the other very important core functions as a separate process inthe user mode, they communicate via message passing. The basic idea is to be assmall as possible. Microkernel usually contains only a process scheduling,memory management and interprocess communication several fundamental functions.

The typicalexample of the micro-kernel operating system, distributed operating system ofthe of Mach, IBMAIX, BeOS, and the Windows NT famous Minix (a Unix system ismainly used for teaching) and Amoeba (native).

Single kernel(Monolithic kernel) - single-core is a great process. Its internal and can bedivided into a number of modules (or level, or other). But in the run time, itis a separate binary image. Because it is in the same process, thecommunication between modules is achieved by directly calling a function inanother module, rather than micro-kernel messaging as multiple processes.Operating efficiency, single-core has certain advantages.

A typicalexample of the single-kernel operating system, most of Linux, BSD, includingvirtually all Unix, MS-DOS, Windows 9x.

Microkernelarchitecture, Hyper-V to have the edge in size, its size is only about 300k,VMware ESX Server Linux kernel is very large. Few functions needed VMMvirtualization hypervisor microkernel architecture is appropriate, theoperating efficiency can be high. In theory, the single kernel of fact, therational allocation and microkernel is also very similar. But before that, wenext take a look at One of the benefits of the micro-kernel: device driverchanges.

Alwaysnecessary no matter what kernel, drivers and file systems, virtual machinesneed to use server hardware need drivers, documentation of the virtual machineneeds to be saved in the appropriate file system. VMware ESX Server insingle-core drivers included inside the single-core virtual machine image filesstored in VMFS (a similar EXT file system), the micro-kernel architecture ofHyper-V do?

Hyper-V usingthe VSP / VSC architecture to solve driver / file system / file system byadding the corresponding driver of VSP and VSC, and they communicate with eachother VM Bus bus, Hyper-V virtual machine's operation is mapped into the ParentPartition in this way has a lot of benefits.

This advantageof the Hyper-V device driver is right and the advantages of the micro-kerneldriver architecture, modular, flexible architecture, you do not need to changecan provide new hardware support.

Hyper-V alsohas important characteristics: a performance of multiprocessor virtualmachines, Hyper-V support 4 CPU Windows Server 2008 virtual machine, and 2 CPU,Windows Server 2003 virtual machine. Multi-processor is not a Hyper-V virtualmachine that has the features, VMware's ESX Server has already 4 CPU's virtualmachine, and under a variety of operating systems (VMware Workstation provides2 CPU virtual machine).

If the serverworkloads that need high performance, we can consider the use ofmulti-processor virtual machine. The database server can consume a lot ofprocessor resources, In this case, the multi-processor virtual machines is verymust. Of course, only when the work load times of real need, beforemulti-processor virtual machine should be used, because the managementprocessor will bring some additional overhead.

As we allknow, in order to protect the shared data, need some synchronizationmechanisms, such as locks, semaphores, and so on. Usually multiprocessoroperating system kernel and driver spin lock (Spin Lock, similar to the mutex,but the hold time is shorter.) Mechanism, before spinlock, thread and does notblock, but has been in the spin state, the premise the spinlock will only keepfor a short period of time. However, in virtualization under conditions, thispremise will be broken pieces, because the virtual processors is a schedulingis performed in accordance with the time slice. Competitive virtual processorspinlock other virtual processor is necessary to spin a long time, leading to awaste of CPU cycles.

Hyper-V IDCenvironment advantages are what it? ! First, we analysis from IDC itself. IDCenvironment, physical space, resources, energy consumption, temperaturecontrol, and bandwidth traffic safety concern. Effective server consolidationand virtualization applications, which can effectively solve these problems.

Assuming IDCservice providers virtual host the Mail database rented hosted Internetapplication services, a cabinet unit, in a limited cabinet space, we want toplace for a virtual host, Mail, Database rented hosting applications such asservers, sometimes multiple server farms, may also be set in all applicationson a server. Undeniable kind of business infrastructure that exists in most ofthe small and medium-sized IDC, and continued to the present. So the problem isobvious. Special business needs, if you focus on the management, security, andperformance, then you need to deploy a separate application server business,but then the maintenance costs will increase, administrators need to switchseveral or even dozens of service . In the server, such as increased costs atthe same time, also spent a lot of valuable rack space. It is possible only ona server in a business cycle, carrying dozens of business. If you deploymultiple applications on a single server, the cost is decreased, but will notbe able to guarantee security and performance. Moreover, it may appear solelyin order to perform the maintenance of an application, and restart or pause theserver, is bound to cause other businesses shut down, not worth the candle!

With theattention of Microsoft virtualization and afterburner the the virtualizationapplication process has been the biggest step of advancing. Windows Server 2008and Hyper-V officially launched, and has laid a solid foundation forvirtualization applications. IDC environment, we can deploy multiple Hyper-Vvirtualization server application, and get the effective integration.

Hyper-Vprovides not only a strong performance, but also to provide a stable, richfeatures and functionality, and Microsoft Hyper-V also provides support solutions.Now, we can be virtual hosting, business offices, database, or even the user'sserver rental, all integrated into a 1U or 2U server, each application islocated in a sub-partition, independent of each other, but are closely linked!For example, the original virtual host and database are two servers, betweenrelying on network connection, then the efficiency will certainly have animpact, but by the Hyper-V integration time, rely on the VM Bus, efficiencywill be greatly improved.

In terms ofhardware resources, CPU, memory, hard drives can be convenient, fast freeallocation, we do not need to go to the trouble to disassemble the serverhardware for a server upgrade, not to go to the bother to consider whether thenew purchase accessories are compatible with the current server . Especially inserver rental, if you give up the rented, then the device update cycle, theserver can continue to rent to other users, but if the server is outdated oraging, then I think if you continue to rent to other users. IDC business doeslittle good, even if it looks very good current business ... but it does have alot of hidden dangers.

Terms ofenergy consumption, because of the reduction in hardware, power consumption isreduced. Followed by room temperature is also easier to control. Precisiontotal capacity will be increased.

Microsoftproducts have the advantages of a highly integrated, virtualization management,backup, redundancy, there are a variety of solutions and products to choosefrom. We can deploy the Hyper-V cluster to achieve fast failover and highavailability. Virtualization management products can quickly a virtualizationapplication to migrate to a Hyper-V server, without being affected by theimpact of different hardware devices. Hyper-V also has one of the biggestadvantages is rich API. The application advantages of Hyper-V in the IDCenvironment, there are many more applications or business solutions have yet tobe for us to dig.

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