VIRTUAL MACHINES

PROVISIONING
 Introduction
Let’s focus on two core services that enable the users to
get the best out of the IaaS model in public and
private cloud setups, Virtual machine provisioning and
migration services.

Analogy for Virtual Machine Provisioning:

• Historically, when there is a need to install a new
server for a certain workload to provide a particular
service for a client, lots of effort was exerted by the
IT administrator, and much time was spent to install
and provision a new server.
1) Check the inventory for a new machine,
2) get one,
3) format, install OS required,
4) and install services; a server is needed along with lots of security batches
and appliances.
•
Contd…
With the emergence of virtualization technology and
the cloud computing IaaS model:
• It is just a matter of minutes to achieve the same
task.
• All you need is to provision a virtual server through
a self-service interface with small steps to get
what you desire with the required specifications.

1)provisioning this machine in a public cloud like

Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), or
2)using a virtualization management software package
or a private cloud management solution installed at your
data center in order to provision the virtual machine
inside the organization and within the private cloud setup.
What is VM provisioning?
Virtual machine
provisioning, or virtual
server provisioning, is a
systems management
process that creates a
new virtual machine (VM)
on a physical host server
and allocates computing
resources to support the
VM
 Contd…
Analogy for Migration Services:
• Previously, whenever there was a need for
performing a server’s upgrade or performing
maintenance tasks, you would exert a lot of time
and effort, because it is an expensive operation to
maintain or upgrade a main server that has lots
of applications and users.

• with the advance of the revolutionized

virtualization technology and migration
services associated with hypervisors’
capabilities, these tasks (maintenance,
upgrades, patches, etc.) are very easy and need
no time to accomplish.
 Contd…
• Provisioning a new virtual machine is a
matter of minutes, saving lots of time and
effort, Migrations of a virtual machine is a
matter of milliseconds:

1)saving time, 2) effort, 3) making the service alive for

customers,
and
4) achieving the SLA/SLO agreements and quality-of-service
(QoS) specifications required.
VM Provisioning
 Layered Virtualization Technology
• The virtualization layer partitions the physical resource of
the underlying physical server into multiple virtual
machines with different workloads.
Role of the The virtualization layer:
• 1) Schedules resources,
• Allocates physical resources,
• Makes each virtual machine think that it totally owns the
whole underlying hardware’s physical resource
(Preprocessor, disks, etc.)
• Makes it flexible and easy to manage resources.
• Improve the utilization of resources by multiplexing many
virtual machines on one physical host.
• The machines can be scale up and down on demand with a
high level of resources’ abstraction.
• Enables High, Reliable, and agile deployment mechanism.
• Provides On-demand cloning and live migration.
• Having efficient management suite for managing virtual
machines
Private cloud and Infrastructure Services
• A private cloud aims at providing public cloud
functionality, but on private resources, while
maintaining control over an organization’s data
and resources to meet security and governance’s
requirements in an organization.

• Private cloud exhibits a highly virtualized cloud data

center located inside your organization’s firewall. It
may also be a private space dedicated for your
company within a cloud vendor’s data center
designed to handle the organization’s workloads,
and in this case it is called Virtual Private Cloud
(VPC).
 Private clouds exhibit the
following characteristics:
1) Allow service provisioning and compute capability for
an organization’s users in a self-service manner.
2) Automate and provide well-managed virtualized
environments.
3) Optimize computing resources, and servers’ utilization.
3) Support specific workloads.
There are many examples for vendors and frameworks that
provide infrastructure as a service in private setups. The
best- known examples are Eucalyptus and OpenNebula.
4) It is also important to highlight a third type of cloud setup
named “hybrid cloud,” in which a combination of
private/internal and external cloud resources exist together
by enabling outsourcing of noncritical services and functions
in public cloud and keeping the critical ones internal.
5) Hybrid cloud’s main function is to release resources from a
public cloud and to handle sudden demand usage, which is
called “cloud bursting.”
 Cloud and Virtualization
Standardization Efforts
• Standardization is important to ensure
interoperability between virtualization management
vendors, the virtual machines produced by each one
of them, and cloud computing.
• Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF)
have produced standards for almost all the
aspects of virtualization technology.
• DMTF initiated the VMAN (Virtualization
Management Initiative), which delivers broadly
supported interoperability and portability standards
for managing the virtual computing lifecycle.
 Contd…
• VMAN’s OVF (Open Virtualization Format) in a
collaboration between industry key players: Dell,
HP, IBM, Microsoft, XenSource, and VMware.

• OVF specification provides a common format to

package and securely distribute virtual appliances
across multiple virtualization platforms. VMAN
profiles define a consistent way of managing a
heterogeneous virtualized environment
 Cloud and Virtualization
Standardization Efforts
• Another standardization effort has been initiated by
Open Grid Forum (OGF) through organizing an
official new working group to deliver a standard API
for cloud IaaS, the Open Cloud Computing Interface
Working Group (OCCIWG).

• This group is dedicated for delivering an API

specification for the remote management of cloud
computing’s infrastructure and for allowing the
development of interoperable tools for common
tasks including deployment, autonomic scaling, and
monitoring.
 Contd…
• The new API for interfacing “IaaS” cloud
computing facilities will allow:
• Consumers to interact with cloud
computing infrastructure on an ad hoc
basis.
• Integrators to offer advanced management
services.
• Aggregators to offer a single common interface
to multiple providers.
• Providers to offer a standard interface that
is compatible with the available tools.
• Vendors of grid/clouds to offer standard Interfaces
for dynamically scalable service’s delivery in their
products.
 Virtual Machine Provisioning and
Manageability Virtual Machine Life
• Virtual Machine Provisioning and Manageability
Cycle
Virtual Machine Life Cycle
• The cycle starts by a request delivered to the IT
department, stating the requirement for creating
a new server for a particular service.
• This request is being processed by the IT
administration to start seeing the servers’
resource pool, matching these resources with
requirements
• Starting the provision of the needed virtual
machine.
• Once it provisioned and started, it is ready to
provide the required service according to an SLA.
• Virtual is being released; and free resources.
 I T S e r , i ce R e q u e s t
• E n d o f s e r v ic e • I nf ra s truc ture
• C o m p u t e resources R e q u i r em e n ts A n a l y s is
d e a l l o c a t e d to o t h e r V M s • I T re q u est

V l \1 s I n O p e r a t i o n VJ\.1 P r o v i j o n
• S e r vi n g w e b r e q u e st s • L o ad O S + A pp l i a n c e s
• M i g r a t i o n s e r v ic e s • C u s tom i z e a n d C o n f i g u r e
• S e a l o n -d e m a nd • Start t h e server
c o m p u _te r e so u r c e s

F I G U R E 5.3 . V i r t u a l m a c h i n e l i fe c y cle .