VMWare, Xen and KVM

Dr. Emmanuel S. Pilli

 Early days of VM
Technology was initially popularized in 1960s by IBM.
IBM 370 /VM
1990 VMware released its virtualization product: slow,
based on x86 platform (no multi-core), expensive
Now, we have
VMware suite;
MS virtual PC, Hypervisor;
QEMU (Quick EMUlator): open source
XEN
OpenVZ
KVM
VirtualBox
 VMM architecture: VMWare
Full Virtualization

Binary
translation
based - Full
virtualization
Guest OS
doesnt aware
of underlying
VMM

Source: http://www.vmware.com/pdf/esx2_performance_implications.pdf
 VMM architecture: Xen
Para Virtualization
OSes
Dedicated control domain:
DOM0
Modified Guest OS
- Linux Kernel (3K lines)
- Windows XP (4.6 K lines)
Devices
Front-end (Net-front) for
Guest OS to communicate
Dom0
I/O channel (zero copy)
Backend (Net-back) for
Dom0 to communicate
with underlying systems

Source: An overview of Xen Virtualization from Dell Power Solutions

 VMM architecture: KVM
Hypervisor tightly integrated into Linux code based
Hypervisor:
Kernel module
QEMU QEMU QEMU
Guest OS:
User space
process (QEMU
for x86
emulation)
Need H/W
virtualization
extension
 Xen vs. KVM
Xen
Strong support for para-
virtualization with modified
host-OS
Near-native performance
for I/Os
Separate code base for
Dom0 and device drivers
Security model
Rely on Dom0
Maintainability
Hard to catch up all versions
of possible guests due to PV
KVM
Requires H/W virtualization
extension Intel VT, AMD
Pacifica (AMD-V)
Limited support for para-
virtualization
Code-base integrated into
Linux source tree
Security model
Rely on Commodity/Casual
Linux systems
Maintainability
Easy Integrated well into
infrastructure, codebase
 Features
Xen KVM VirtualBox VMWare
Paravirtualization Yes No No No
Full Virtualization Yes Yes Yes Yes
Host CPU X86, X86_64, IA64 X86, X86_64, IA64, X86, X86_64 X86, X86_64
PPC
Guest CPU X86, X86_64, IA64 X86, X86_64, IA64, X86, X86_64 X86, X86_64
PPC
Host OS Linux, Unix Linux Windows, Linux, Proprietary Unix
Unix
VT-x / AMD-v Opt Req Opt Opt
Supported Cores 128 16* 32 8
Supported 4TB 4TB 16GB 64GB
Memory
3D Acceleration Xen-GL VMGL Open-GL Open-GL, DirectX
Licensing GPL GPL GPL/Proprietary Proprietary

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