Cloud computing Support Technology: Intel Hardware Virtualization Inventory

Since the 80 's, we have been able to get the brain out of the scalability of software and hardware systems. A large number of hardware types, software platform, so that we have to carry out a variety of systems migration, and then with the development of network technology and the development of PCs, our local computing processing speed and portability requirements are increasingly high. Cloud computing is one of the most direct and idealized technologies in many of the technologies that can solve our conflicting applications. Cloud computing is the result of a hybrid evolution of concepts such as virtualization, public computing, Iaas,paas, and SaaS, and virtualization is the technical foundation of cloud computing.

Virtualization technology can increase the capacity of the hardware and simplify the reconfiguration process of the software. The virtualization technology of CPU can simulate multiple CPUs in a single CPU, allow a platform to run multiple operating systems simultaneously, and the application can operate in separate space without affecting each other, thereby significantly improving the efficiency of the computer. This technology has been widely used in traditional mainframe and UNIX systems, but because desktop CPUs mostly use the X86 architecture, it is difficult to use hardware-level virtualization on top of it. Intel is a pioneer in the application of this technology to desktop products to improve CPU performance and reduce system build overhead, which is also consistent with Intel's current strategy, that is, no longer blindly chasing the CPU speed, but focus on the efficiency of the CPU.

Intel has been promoting the application of Intel Virtualization Technology (Intel VT) virtualization technology in its processor product line since the end of 2005. The VT Virtualization technology addresses growing virtualization requirements through an upgrade of I/O devices for Intel processors, chipsets, and hardware-assisted virtualization that supports the core platform architecture.

Specifically, intel® Virtualization technology Intel VT consists of Vt-x, vt-d, and vt-c, including Vt-x Technologies for IA-32 architecture processors, vt-d Technologies for chipsets, and VT-C Technologies for the network, There are also vt-i virtualization technologies for the Itanium® processor. Vt-x is the best known instruction set, adding migration, priority, and memory management capabilities to Intel's multiple models of processors. In contrast, the vt-d instruction set improves the Intel chip support for virtualization, allowing the chipset to complete assigning certain I/O device resources to a particular virtual machine. VT-C introduces virtualization support for some I/O devices, such as network switches. Memory control and management play a pivotal role in the process of hardware-based virtualization. The Intel vt-x instruction set eliminates the impact of VMM intervention when it comes to software-based resource allocation. and the memory management feature is added to the extended Page tables, which is necessary for the transfer of processor resource control between different virtual machines.

Vt-x:

Vt-x technology reduces the VMM (Virtual machine monitor) intervention, enhances the flexibility and stability of software-based virtualization scenarios, and enables faster, more reliable, and secure switching when VMM intervention is required. In addition, Intel Vt-x provides strong hardware platform support for the transfer platform control between VMM and the customer's operating system. Intel Vt-x Technology includes the Intel Virtualization Mobility Technology (Intel VT Flexmigration), the Intel VT Flexpriority, the Intel VT Extended page Table (Extended page tables).

The Intel VT Flexpriority can create a virtual copy of TPR (dedicated registers), reducing the number of unnecessary interrupts to the processor, thereby significantly improving efficiency. In addition, the virtual copy can be changed by the customer operating system.

Intel Virtualization Mobility Technology (Intel VT flexmigration) enables seamless migration between the current server based on Intel processors and future servers, even if the new system may include enhanced instruction sets. This enables the management program to establish a consistent set of instructions in all servers within the migration pool to achieve seamless migration of workloads. Generate a flexible, unified pool of server resources that can be run seamlessly in multiple generations of hardware.

As we all know, the maintenance and operation investment of the online operation infrastructure has always been an issue of concern to operators. A well-known domestic information Technology Co., Ltd. in an interview that has been due to hardware failures caused the operation of the server downtime, so that online users for a long time no response. In the same application system, the host of users too much, also increased the risk of reliability.

Following the introduction of Virtualization 2.0 based Intel Virtualization technology, the company's technical director said that the whole process of failure transfer can be completely automated, without human intervention. The Vt-x technology makes the switching time of hardware failure greatly shorten, only 90-120 seconds, improve the response speed and thus reduce the overall investment cost.

Vt-d:

Intel vt-d speeds data transfer by reducing the need for VMM to participate in managing I/O traffic, eliminating most of the performance overhead.

VT-D supports a virtual machine architecture consisting of two major categories of software:

• Virtual Machine Manager (Virtual-machine MONITOR,VMM): Virtual Machine Manager is like a host, with full control over the processor and other platform hardware. Virtual Machine Manager is embodied as client software and a virtual processor that allows direct execution on logical processors. Virtual Machine Manager can retain selective control over processor resources, physical memory, interrupt management, and I/O.

• Customer software: Each virtual machine is a customer software environment that supports stacks of one operating system and application software. Each virtual machine runs independently of other virtual machines and uses the same interface for the processor, memory, storage, card, and I/O provided by the physical platform. This software stack is like running on a platform without a virtual Machine manager. The software running in the virtual machine must run with reduced privileges so that the virtual Machine Manager can retain control over the platform resources.

As the volume of business grows and the pressure on the limited IT budget increases, organizations want to find the right solution to effectively manage a large number of hardware servers and make their resources fully utilized. Shanghai Shanda Network Development Co., Ltd. Choose a virtualization solution based on Intel virtualization technology with a significant increase in server resource utilization to enable legendary world game servers to support the original 1.21 times times concurrent users in virtualized environments. The virtual environment consumes only 23.5% of the traditional environment and saves a lot of maintenance cost of the artificial server.

The technical Support Center of the Shanda platform Operation Department said in an interview: "A virtualized solution built on Intel Xeon processors and Intel virtualization technology to meet the performance and functionality requirements of a separate gaming area in the legendary world, not only to support a higher number of simultaneous online users than the traditional way, And it can greatly reduce the power consumption required for server operation. ”

Vt-c:

In a cluster and data center environment, each server typically runs a large number of virtual machines at the same time. Due to the limited number of network devices in the server, multiple virtual machines have to reuse the same network device, resulting in degraded performance. Vt-c includes two technologies to optimize network performance:

Virtual Machine Device QUEUES,VMDQ. If the Ethernet controller supports VMDQ technology, VMM can use different packet queues for the virtual machines, and the Ethernet controller automatically classifies packets and puts them into the appropriate queues, greatly reducing the burden on the VMM and increasing I/O throughput.

Virtual Machine Direct CONNECT,VMDC. In layman's parlance, the network device that supports this technology can display multiple virtual function interfaces externally. Each functional interface is equivalent to a network device that VMM can assign directly to a virtual machine, thereby "avoiding" the reuse of network devices.

In the use of virtualization, Virtual Machine Manager is a key component of the platform infrastructure. VT Technology can improve the reliability and support of virtualized infrastructure software through programmatic interface virtualization of processor hardware, and lays the groundwork for additional virtualization support for other hardware components in the platform.

Intel VT Virtualization Technology has been a surprise to us, and it has made it possible to complete the virtualization of our computers at the hardware level, allowing more users to get involved in the application of new technologies and greatly improve the efficiency of their CPU use. As can be seen, the hardware level of virtualization technology will be the future direction of computer development.