j hardware virtualization support in intel, amd and ibm power processors

6

Click here to load reader

Upload: ijcsis

Post on 30-May-2018

219 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

8/14/2019 j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/j-hardware-virtualization-support-in-intel-amd-and-ibm-power-processors 1/6

Page 2: j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

8/14/2019 j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/j-hardware-virtualization-support-in-intel-amd-and-ibm-power-processors 2/6

support, simplicity, monitoring facility and security whichis the point of interest for indus trial computing systems.

II. DIFFERENT VIRTUALIZATION TECHNIQUES

In uniprocessor system, it often assumes only oneprocess in the kernel. As a result, it simplifies the kernelinstructions and cross-process lock is not required. But thescenario is changed when multiple processors execute in thekernel. That means adding SMP support changes theoriginal operating system. Hence mechanisms forsupporting multiprocessors operating systems are required.There are different ways of organizing a multiprocessoroperating system such as giant locking, coarse-grainedlocking, fine-grained locking, asymmetric approaches,virtualization and API/ABI compatibility andreimplementa tion. But the virtualization technique is theimportant one as the developers are continuously upgradingthis technology . At first, we describe software-onlyvirtualization and hardware virtualization. Thenparavirtualization and full virtualization is explained.

A. SOFTWARE ONLY VIRTUALIZATION

In software-only virtualization technique, the concept of 2-bit privilege level is used: using 0 for most privilegedsoftware and 3 for least privileged those. In this architecture(IA-32 and Itanium), the guest operating systems eachcommunicates with the hardware through the VirtualMachine Monitor (VMM) which must decide that access forall virtual machines on the system. Thus, the virtual machinecan be run on non-privileged mode i.e. non-privilegedinstructions can be executed directly without involving theVMM. But there are some problems that arise in software-only solution. Firstly, ring aliasing- problems that arisewhen software is run at a privilege level other than thelevel for which it was written. Secondly, address-spacecompression- occurs when guest software tries to access theVMM’s guest’s virtual address space. Thirdly, impacts onguest transitions- may cause a tran sition to the VMM and notto the guest operating system. VMMs also face othertechnical challenges such as use of private memory forVMM use only, use of VMM interrupt handling, hiddenstate access etc. [16].

B. HARDWARE VIRTUALIZATION

Hardware virtualization allows the VMM to run virtualma chines in an isolated and protected environment. It is also

transparent to the software running in the virtual machine,which thinks that it is in exclusive control of the hardware.In 1999, VMware introduced the hosted VMM, and it wascapa ble of extending a modern operating system to supporta vir tual machine that acts and runs like the hardware levelVMM of old [14]. To address the problems of softwareonly virtualization solution, hardware virtualizationmecha nism is applied which is possibly the most commonlyknown technology, including products from VMware andMicrosoft’s Virtual Server. Now, VMMs could run off-the-

shelf operating systems and applications without recourse tobinary translation or paravirtualization. This capabilitygreatly facili tates the deployment of VMMs and providesgreater reliability and manageability of guest operatingsystems and applications.

C. PARAVIRTUALIZATION

Basically, to overcome the virtualization challengesof software-only virtualization, the VMM was developedby the designers that modify guest software (source orbinary). Denali and Xen are examples of VMMs that usesource level modifications in a technique calledparavirtu alization. Paravirtualization is similar tohardware emula tion because in concept it is designed tosupport multiple OSs. The only implementation of thistechnology today is the Xen open source project, soon tobe followed by an actual product from XenSource.Paravirtualization provides high performance andeliminates the ‘changes to guest ap plications’. But thedisadvantage is that it supports lim ited numbers of operating systems. For example, Xen cannot support an

operating system that its developers have not modified, suchas Microsoft Windows.

D. FULL VIRTUALIZATION

Full system virtualization provides a virtual replica of thesystem’s hardware so that operating systems and softwaremay run on the virtual hardware exactly as they would onthe original hardware [13]. The first introduced software forfull virtualization system was CP-67, designed as a specializedtime-sharing system which exposed to each user acomplete virtual System/360 computer. Though fullvirtualization on PC architectures is extremely complex, atpresent it is pio neered in the market since 1998 as VMware

initiated x86 based virtualization providing the fundamentaltechnology for all leading x86-based hardware suppliers. Itcreates a uniform hardware image that implemented throughsoftware on which both operating system and applicationprograms can run.

III. HARDWARE VIRTUALIZATION SUPPORT INMICROPROCESSORS

The challenges imposed on IT business that the CIOsand IT managers always face are cost-effective utilizationof IT in frastructure and flexibility in adapting toorganizational changes. Hence, virtualization is a

fundamental technological innovation that provides theskilled IT professionals to orga nize creative solutions tothose business challenges. The leading companies of ITsector are also introducing their innova tive and well-developed approaches every day to cope with demands of the age. Again the hardware virtualization support is animportant factor for the field of Grid Computing or se cureon-Demand Cluster computing. The hardware support forvirtualization in current microprocessors is addressed in thissection.

(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information SecurityVol. 4, No. 1 & 2, 2009

ISSN 1947 550073

Page 3: j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

8/14/2019 j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/j-hardware-virtualization-support-in-intel-amd-and-ibm-power-processors 3/6

A. INTEL HARDWARE SUPPORT

Intel is developing microprocessors with variousadvanced virtualization supports. They are updating theirtechnologies constantly to facilitate the users’ demands.Starting with Server and mainframe systems virtualization,now Intel is providing hardware support for processorvirtualization through virtual machine monitor softwarewhich is also known as hypervisor. The actual aim of usinghypervisor is to arbitrate access to the underlying physicalhost system’s resources so that multiple operating systemsthat are guests to VMM, can share them. IA-32 andItanium architecture were built on software-onlyvirtualization sup port [16]. But unfortunately they facedmany challenges while providing virtualization supports. Thesoftware cannot work properly in concern with the corehardware, that’s why it has to use complex schemes toimitate hardware features to the software. Moreover, it hasto make the illusion that the host operating system thinkingthe virtual machine as another application. To eliminate theseproblems, VMM designers developed new solutions likeXen [2] and Denali VMMs that use source levelmodification known as paravirtualization. But the mainlimita tion of this scheme is that it is applicable for a certainnumber of operating system. Hence Intel developed newarchitectures VT-x and VT-i for IA-32 processors (CoreDuo and Solo) and Itanium processors family respectivelywhich offered full virtualization using the hypervisorsupport. This new architecture enables VMM to run off-the-self operating systems and applications without any binarytranslation or paravirtualization. As a result it in creasesrobustness, reliability and security.

B. AMD HARDWARE SUPPORT

AMD has introduced their new Quad-Core AMD OpteronProcessor (based on Pacifica specification) which is designedto provide optimal virtualization. This processor provides anumber of features which enhances the performance andefficiency of the virtualization support. Firstly, AMD OpteronRapid Virtualization Indexing, which allows virtual machineto more directly manage memory to improve performance onmany virtualized applications [1]. It also decreases the“world-switch time” i.e. time spent switching from one virtualmachine to another. Secondly, direct CPU-to-memory, CPU-to-I/O, and CPU-to-CPU connections to streamline servervirtualization is ensured through AMD’s direct connectarchitecture. Thus, it is possible to host more VMs per serverand maximize the benefits of virtualization in terms of highbandwidth, low latency, and scalable access to memory.Thirdly, tagged Translation Look-Aside Buffer (TLB) hasincreased responsiveness in virtualized environments.Actually, through Tagged TLB, AMD Opteron processormaintains a mapping to the VMs individual memory spaceswhich eliminates additional memory management overheadand reduces switching time of virtual machines. Finally,Device Exclusion Vector (DEV) performs security checks inhardware rather than software. DEV mechanism controlsaccess to virtual machine memory based on permission. Theseunique features have brought AMD to the frontline of battleon hardware virtualization support.

C. IBM HARDWARE SUPPORT

As the successor of POWER3 and POWER4, IBMintro duced advanced virtualization capabilities in IBMPOWER5 processors in 2004. This processor includesincreased per formance and other functional enhancements of virtualization- reliability, availability, and serviceability inboth hardware and software levels [9]. It uses hypervisorwhich is the basis of the IBM virtualization technologies on

Powers systems. This technology provides fast page moverand simultaneous multithreading which finally extends thecapability of PPC5. It supports logical partitioning andmicro partitioning. Up to ten LPARs (logical partitions)can be created for each CPU. Thus the biggest 64-Waysystem is able to run 256 independ ent operating systems.Memory, CPU-Power and I/O can be dynamicallycontrolled between partitions. Thus, IBM PPC5 uses theparavirtualization or cooperative partitioning in con junctionwith the ATX, i5/OS, and Linux operating systems whichoffers minimal overhead [7]. This also ensures effi cientresource utilization through recovery of idle processingcycles, dynamic reconfiguration of partition resources, andconsolidation of multiple operating systems on a singleplat form and platform enforced security and isolation betweenpartitions. The latest processor of IBM with virtualizationsupport is IBM POWER6- the world’s fastest computerchip, features industry leading virtualization capabilities.This processor provides a number of attractive featuressuch as live partition mobility, expanded scalability,dynamic reallocation of resources etc. [6]. The LivePartition Mobility (LPM) feature allows clients to moverunning partitions automatically from one POWER6 serverto another without powering down the server. Moreover,clients can create up to 160 virtual servers in a single boxwhich provides much capability to run all kinds of differentworkloads (such as large scale database transactions to webservers) on the same server. IBM has built dynamicreallocation capabilities in chip. Users or in some cases thechip, itself, can reallocate and reassign computing resourceswithin shared the environment. In addition to theseexclusive features, IBM POWER6 provides enhancedperformance, increased flexibility, application mobility etc.

IV. FUTURE CHALLENGES AND SUPPORTS

Though hardware virtualization support in currentprocessors has resolved many problems, it may also providenew solution for some future challenges. Extension of existing operating systems to present the abstraction of multiple servers is re quired for implementation of

virtualization at other levels of the software stack. Languagelevel virtualization technologies may be introduced by thecompanies to provide language run- times that interpret andtranslate binaries compiled for abstract architectures enableportability. Today Sun’s Java and Micro soft’s CLR VMMsdominate the market for language level virtualizationtechnologies [4]. Memory virtualization should be efficientenough to make frequent changes to their page tables.Moreover, research must look at the entire data center leveland surely significant strides will be made in this area in the

(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information SecurityVol. 4, No. 1 & 2, 2009

ISSN 1947 550074

Page 4: j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

8/14/2019 j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/j-hardware-virtualization-support-in-intel-amd-and-ibm-power-processors 4/6

incoming decade. At present, the manual migration is onpractice, but the future should launch a virtual machineinfra- structure that automatically performs load balancing,detects impending hardware failures and migrates virtualmachines accordingly and creates and destroys virtualmachines according to demand for particular support. Tofacilitate these supports, the instruction sets should bechanged or new instructions should be added on which theprocessors can perform its jobs. Moreover, besides full andparavirtualiza tion, pre-virtualization is a new technique thatclaims that it eliminates the guest-side engineering cost, yetmatches the runtime performance of paravirtualization [17].The virtualization will be useful for the industrial support,precisely for providing Grid services. At present, gridcomputing is gained prominence for its usage in physics,mathematics and medi cine, to name just a few applications[10]. So grid computing or on-demand computing requiresthe virtualization support for taking the advantages of thistechnology in their shared com puting environment.

V. DISCUSSION

This paper describes an important part of the currentcomputing systems as the present trend is to providemultiprocessor operating systems. The main objective of our study is to find out the current scenario of the hardwarevirtualiza tion supports provided by various companies.From our sur vey, it is found that IBM is providing thebest hardware virtualization supports where highavailability, optimum system performance and efficiencyare ensured. The most important feature incorporated inIBM technology is that the users have much control onshared resources as it is possible to modify the memoryand I/O configurations in real time, without downtime,by the POWER6 server clients [6]. On the other hand,when IBM emphasizes on load balancing and livepartition mobility, AMD focuses on intercommunicationspeed and performance such as high-bandwidth, low-latency access to memory, high throughputresponsiveness for applications etc. Featuring AMDVirtualization technology with Rapid VirtualizationIndexing and Direct Connect Architecture, Quad-CoreAMD Opteron processors enable industry leadingvirtualization platform efficiency [1]. Intel, the giantmicroprocessor manufacturer improves the existingsoftware-only virtualization solutions by enhancing thereliability, supportability, security and flexibility of virtualization solutions. Intel is working on increasedhardware virtualization supports for both server anddesktop computer. However, the table 5.1 shown in thenext page addresses some important features of Intel,AMD and IBM processor with virtualization support.

From the table, it is clear that IBM POWER6 is themost powerful machine with enhanced virtualizationcapabilities. The fastest microprocessor used inPOWER6 has hit speed of 6Hz, for the first time ever.Although IBM offers better output as it uses robusthardware support for virtualization, it is more costly thanIntel and AMD. The user interaction also makes a securityhole and vulnerable to the intruders. The virtualization

technologies offered by Intel and AMD are not compatible,but each offers similar functionalities. These virtualization-friendly extensions for the x86 architecture essentially providethe foundation to maximize the efficiency and capabilities of software virtualization.

All microprocessor manufacturer companies are interestedto enhance their virtualization capabilities. The main reasonbehind that hardware virtualization reduces the cost and

provides reliability, availability & scalability. However, theconcentration is more on server than the desktop computers asserver machine requires more processing capacities. The table5.2 in the next page shows the TPC Benchmark results(www.tpc.org) of AMD, Intel and IBM system with two serverprocessors.

This table indicates that IBM P6 provides the bestperformance among all as well as it results in highest price.IBM P6 can perform 404462 transactions per minute while itis 273666 for Intel. On the other hand, AMD is less than half of total transactions per minute performed by Intel. In terms of price, IBM P6 system costs four times more than Intel whileAMD is almost same as Intel.

Finally, the question is which forthcoming technology is

going to overwhelm the others. The answer is hardwareassisted virtualization techniques will dominate over all. FromPower 5, IBM provides micro-partitioning and specialtechnology for dynamic resource allocation. Again, AMDOpteron introduces tagged TLB, and Direct ConnectArchitecture which is designed for dedicated memory accessand efficient switching between virtual machines. Theintegrated memory controller of AMD Opteron also improvesoverall virtualization performance and efficiency. And themost exciting news is that Intel also switches to hardwareassisted virtualization techniques from their Intel Quad CoreXeon processor (7400 Series) which includes Intel VTFlexPriority for interrupt handling and Virtual MachineDevice Queues (VMDq) to off-load the network I/O

management burden and freeing processor cycles andimproving overall performance. So, there is no doubt that thenext advancement of hardware virtualization technology willbe fully based on hardware assisted techniques.

VI. CONCLUDING REMARKS

Some problems that must be specified which we facedcontinuing the study. Firstly, to achieve the exact result it isrequired to get access in real hardware and it is not possible.Secondly, the SPEC results is not specific to virtualizationsupport only, it includes the virtualization fea tures withinprocessors. So the performance measurement partly takesthe virtualization support in consideration. But the goodnews is that Standard Performance Evaluation Corporation(SPEC) has created a working group to address thedevelopment of a set of industry standard methods to compareperformance of virtualization technologies. Current membersof the working group include AMD, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens,Hewlett-Packard, Intel, IBM, Sun Microsystems, SWsoft(NowParallels) and VMware [15]. So, to draw a sound and moreaccurate conclusion we have to wait few more days. But thispaper will definitely provide the basis to explore one’s journeytowards hardware virtualization.

(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information SecurityVol. 4, No. 1 & 2, 2009

ISSN 1947 550075

Page 5: j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

8/14/2019 j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/j-hardware-virtualization-support-in-intel-amd-and-ibm-power-processors 5/6

Table 5.1: Comparative view of Intel, AMD and IBM virtualization support based on SPEC evaluation [15].

CharacteristicsIntel Xeon 7000

Series Processors

AMD Opteron

Processors

IBM POWER6

Processors

Hardware Assisted

Virtualization

Intel Virtual

Technology (VT)

AMD-V with Rapid

VirtualizationIndexing

Live Partition Mobility

(LPM)

Modular, Glueless,

ScalabilityRequires Northbridge Yes

Yes, supports up to 160

virtual servers

SMP CapabilitiesUp to 4 Sockets/ 16

Cores

Up to 8 Sockets/ 32

CoresUp to 8 Sockets/ 16 Cores

User Interaction No No

Yes, user can create VMs

which span the entire

system

Server/

Application DowntimeYes Yes

No, Sustain system

avail ability during

maintenance or re-hosting

Concurrent firmware

and Operating System

Updates

No NoYes, even when

applicati ons are active

Table 5.2: TPC Benchmark results with price and performance (based on SPEC)

SpecRevision

tpmC(transacti

on perminute)

Price/Perform

ance

Total SystemCost (USD) Server CPU Type

TotalServerCPU's

TotalServer

Processors

TotalServerCores

To talServer

Threads

5.6 113628 2.99 338730 AMD Opteron –(2.6 GHz) 2 2 4 4

5.9 273666 1.38 376910Intel Quad-CoreXeon Processor

X5460 (3.16GHz)2 2 8 8

5.8 404462 3.51 1417121 IBM Power6 (4.7GHz) 2 2 4 8

(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information SecurityVol. 4, No. 1 & 2, 2009

ISSN 1947 550076

Page 6: j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

8/14/2019 j Hardware Virtualization Support In INTEL, AMD And IBM Power Processors

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/j-hardware-virtualization-support-in-intel-amd-and-ibm-power-processors 6/6

REFERENCES

1. [AMD], Product Brief: Quad-Core AMD Opteron Processor, Web: http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/ProductInformation

/0,,30_118_8796_15223,00.html, Last checked: 24 October, 2008.

2. [Barham, Dragovic, Fraser, Hand, Harris, Ho, Neugebauer, Pratt,Warfield], Xen and the art of virtualization, by Paul Barham, BorisDragovic, Keir Fraser, Steven Hand, Tim Harris, Alex Ho, Rolf

Neugebauer, Ian Pratt and Andrew Warfield , October 2003,Proceedings of the nineteenth ACM symposium on Operatingsystems principles, Published by - ACM press.

3. [Eggers, Emer, Levy, Lo, Stamm and Tullsen], Simultaneousmultithreading: A platform for the next generation processor, by S. JEggers, J. S. Levy, J. L. Lo , R. L. Stamm and D.M.Tullsen , IEEEMicro, 17 (5):12 -19, 1997.

4. [Fiqueriredo, Dinda, Fortes], Guest Editors’ Introduction ResourceVirtualization Renaissance, by Renato Fiqueriredo, Peter A. Dindaand Jose Fortes, IEE Computer, Publication:May 2005, Volume: 38,Page(s): 28 -31, ISSN: 0018-9162

5. [Hammond, Nayfeh and Olukotun], A single-chip multiprocessor ,by L.Hammond, B. A. Nayfeh and K. Olukotun, Computer, 30(9):79-85, 1997.

6. [IBM], FACT SHEET : IBM POWER6 VIRTUALIZATION, Web:http://www-05.ibm.com/il/takebackcontrol/systemp/downloads/ POWER6_Fact-Sheet-052507.pdf, Last checked: 24 October, 2008.

7. [IBM], IBM Journal of Research and Development , by IBM, WebPage: http://www.research.ibm.com/journal/rd/494/armstrong.html,Last Checked: 24 October, 2008.

8. [Kahle], Power4: A dual. CPU processor chip, by J. Kahle, inproceedings of the 1999 International Microprocessor, San Jose, CA,October 1999.

9. [Kalla, Sinharoy, Tendler], IBM Power5 chip: a dual-core

multithreaded processor , by Ron Kalla, Balaran Sinharoy and JoelM. Tendler, IEEE Micro, Publication: May -April, 2004, Volume 24 ,Page(s): 40-47 , ISSN: 0272-1732.

10.[Kiyanclar], A Servey of virtualization techniques Focusing onSecure On-Demand Cluster Computing , by Nadir Kiyanclar,University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign, Research of NationalCenter for Supercomputing Applications. May 17, 2006.

11. [Kågström, Lundberg and Grahn], The Application Kernel Approach- a Novel Approach for Adding SMP Support toUniprocessor Operating Systems, by Simon Kågström, LarsLundberg and Håkan Grahn, 18th International Parallel andDistributed Processing Symposium , 2004. Pg. 1-3..

12. [Marr, Binns, Hlill, Hinton, Koufaty, Miler, and Upton],

Hyperthreading technology architecture and microarchitecture, byD. Marr, F. Binns ,D. L. Hlill, G. Hinton, D.A Koufaty , J. A. Miler,and M. Upton, Intel Technology Journal, 6(1):4-15, February 2002.

13. [Rose], Survey of System Virtualization Techniques, by RobertRose, Published:March 8, 2004, Web Page:http://www.robertwrose.com/vita/rose-virtualization.pdf, Lastchecked: 24 October, 2008.

14. [Rosenblum], The Reincarnation of Virtual Machine, by MendelRosenblum, Volume 2, Year of publication- 2004, ISSN:1542-7730,ACM press. New York, USA.

15. [SPEC], SPEC Results-2006 [Processors], Web Page:http://www.spec.org/, Last checked: 24 October, 2008.

16. [Uhlig, Neiger, Rodgers, Santoni, Martins, Anderson, Bennett,Kagi, Leung, Smith], Intel Virtualization Technology, by Rich Uhlig,Gil Neiger, Dion Rodgers, Amy L. Santoni, Fernando C.M. Martins,Andrew V. Anderson, Steven M. Bennett, Alain Kägi, Felix H.Leung, Larry Smith, Intel Corporation . Published by IEEE, Volume38, Issue 5, May, 2005, page(s): 48 -56.

17. [Vasseur, Uhlig , Chapman, Chubb, Leslie, Heiser] Pre-Virtualization: Slashing the Cost of Virtualization, by JoshuaVasseur, Volkmar Uhlig , Matthew Chapman , Peter Chubb, BenLeslie, Gernot Heiser, Technical report 2005: 30 November, 2005,Fakultät fur Informatik, Universität Karlsruhe (TH).

__________________________________________________

Kamanashis Biswas , born in 1982, post graduatedfrom Blekinge Institute of Technology, Sweden in2007. His field of specialization is on Security

Engineering . At present, he is working as a Senior Lecturer in Daffodil International University,Bangladesh.

Md. Ashraful Islam, is post graduated fromAmerican Liberty University, UK. Now he isworking as an Assistant Professor in BangladeshIslami University. His major area of interest issoftware engineering, e-learning and MIS .

(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information SecurityVol. 4, No. 1 & 2, 2009

ISSN 1947 550077