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New Age Vertualization

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

Virtualization is nothing new, this term has been known since the early

1960s, but the concept, usages, and the benefits have changed monumentally in

last few years. Not so long back, virtualization was supposed to be only a good

platform for developers who used to do multi-platform software testing. Owing to

its feature that multiple OSs could run on top of one single hardware box, it

used to solve this purpose very nicely. But at that time it was mostly not

considered to be reliable enough for production environments. The main reasons

for this were the single point failure which it used to create for the

production machines, plus the resource consciousness was also not that great.

The virtualization layer sitting between the host and guest OS used to eat up a

lot of resources.

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But today the whole story has changed. The growing density of datacenters has

made the CIOs think for the alternatives that can save power, equipment, and

most importantly the real state. And the only way to achieve this is by doing

server consolidation. Today virtualization is one of the biggest enabler for

consolidation. So what about the issues with resource allocation and single

point of failure which virtualization was prone to? Ok, the answer to this is

very simple. First of all, if you are yet not aware then let me introduce you to

the term hypervisor. This is one technology which had improved the resource

allocation in virtualization tremendously and had made it robust enough to

handle enterprise class, mission critical production servers. We will look into

its technicalities and how it works, following in this story. Plus with the

advent of concepts like virtual appliances the difficulty of deploying

applications has become so negligible that today the IT managers just love this

concept. We will also delve into this concept in detail.

And to answer the second part of the question, let's take an example. Assume

that you have four different services running on four different hardware server

boxes. Now if you want to migrate all those physical servers into one single

physical server by using virtualization, and your concern is that, if that

particulate single machine fails then all of your four services will come to a

stop. Now, to answer this, the possibility of any kind of a hardware failure is

equal in all the four servers which you were running and ideally you should have

kept backups for all those four servers. But now as you have migrated your

serviced to a virtual environment, hence as a result you have only one server

and you can keep a backup of just that. So now instead of having a one on one

fail safe for your four servers for which you had to buy eight hardware server

boxes now you have to buy just two. Isn't that better in terms of the TCO of

your datacenter?

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HyperV key features

16 Core Support: HyperV can support up to

16 cores in the host machine and distribute them to the virtual machines.

Symmetric Multiprocessors (SMP) Support:

Ability to support up to four multiple processors inside a virtual machine

environment.

Network Load Balancing: Hyper-V

includes new virtual switch capabilities. This means virtual machines can be

easily configured to run with Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB) Service

to balance load across virtual machines on different servers.

x64 Bit Guest support: The Virtual

machine running in HyperV can support 64-bit OSs

VHD Format Compatible: Supports the

VHD format (The standard format used by MS VPC and MS Virtual Server) and

hence upgradation from VPC or Virtual Server becomes very easy.

Now you might say that the servers which can take four such virtual machines

would be radically expensive. But believe me it's not the case. Around one year

back when we did the server shootout in our labs we have seen server with dual

quad core processors and around 16GB of RAM for less than a Lakh http://pcquest.ciol

.com/content/pcshootout/2007/1107081001.asp. And those servers were capable

enough to generate a whopping 50Gigaflops of processing which is half the

performance of Param 10000 (The super computer from CDAC build in 1995).



Now with that note, let's take a closer look to the two great virtualization
technologies of today, the hypervisor and the Virtual Appliances.

From this screen of WinImage you can select

the type Virtual Disk you want to create from your physical machine. It can

be either Dynamic or Fixed
To convert a remote physical machine to a

vmdk image all you have to do is to provide the IP address of the machine

and continue the wizard
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The Hypervisors



The concept of hypervisor for commodity servers and desktops started with

two things, the XEN, which was one of the pioneers to bring full virtualization

in commodity servers and desktops. And the second was the hardware

virtualization initiative from chip manufacturers like Intel and AMD. Intel's VT

and AMD's V or Pacifica is the technologies which let hypervisors run directly

on top of the hardware natively using the processors. A hypervisor is a

technique to run virtualization in full-virtualization mode, which means a setup

where the virtualization layer essentially runs on top of the hardware and below

the Operating System. You will know the difference by comparing it with any

traditional virtualization system, where the virtualization layer runs on top of

the host OS. The hypervisor runs directly on top of the hardware, and uses the

virtualization features of the underlying CPU, eg. Intel's VT and AMD's

Pacifica.

As the virtualization layer sits directly on top of the hardware, it is very

thin and lightweight. It is also more resource conscious. Both of these features

make its performance much better as compared to traditional virtualization

techniques. And hence it becomes ready for mission critical applications.

Virtual Appliances



Virtual Appliances are a preinstalled and configured harddisk image of a

virtualized application with some specific feature. So for instance, PCQLinux

ERP and CRM appliance is a VirtualBox-based hard disk image of a preinstalled

Linux distro with TinyERP preconfigured in it. All you have to do to run it is

to copy the harddisk image to a machine with virtualbox and run it. No need to

install, update, or configure anything.

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Virtual Appliances are a boon for IT Managers, with the help of such

appliances the deployment of software and service has become dramatically easy.

These appliances are becoming most favored mode of software delivery for IT

managers and developers. We talked about Virtual Appliances many times and our

PCQLinux 2008 distribution is also based on the same lines. But still if you are

new to this concept then you can read the story called Applications as

appliances in the JAN 2007 issue of PCQuest or you can visit the website http://pcquest.ciol.com

/content/depth/2007/107010101.asp.

To convert a VPC appliance to VMWare

appliance you can use the VMWare Converter. Just select the third option in

the Import wizard and proceed
You can even natively run your VPC appliance

in VMWare Workstation and Player

And the other great thing about such appliances is that there is a Varity of

such free and opensource appliances available out there over the net. So just

name an open source application and you will find it in a preconfigured

appliance format. All you have to do is to download and boot it. But there is a

catch, if you have ever tried finding any appliance over the internet more than

ones, I am sure most of you had faced a very common problem. The appliance is

available but not for the virtual environment you want it for. So let's say you

have a production environment where you are using Microsoft Virtual Server and

suddenly you tried to search for an appliance for let's say Comp i.e ERP, you

might find it but for may be VMWare or for XEN. And hence interop had become the

need of the day, so that by any means you can convert that appliance to run on

your environment and not the other way round where you have to deploy a new

environment just to run an appliance which is actually not feasible for

production environments. But believe me it might sound impossible or difficult

for most of you, but today it's very much possible to interoperate between

different virtual environments in terms of appliances. Which means either you

can run any appliance created for let's say x virtual environment on y virtual

environment natively or you can first convert it and then run it. And so is for

physical to virtual. We will take a more hands on look into this topic but

before that, let's take a close look on the new kid in the block which is

catching a lot of eyes now a days. And that is the MS HyperV.

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The Microsoft Hypervisor



Around 4 months back, we had talked about the first publicly available

Hypervisor from Microsoft. The news floating then was that, it was just going to

be a component or Role in Windows Server 2008 and will be called Windows

Hypervisor. But recently, with the RTM release of Windows Server 2008 we saw the

latest avatar of Windows Hypervisor which is now called the HyperV. Yes, it

still comes as a Windows Sever 2008 role. Currently only a beta version of

HyperV is available and we are expecting the full release somewhere in the third

quarter of this year. Today you can't buy a copy of Windows Server 2008 for your

production servers along with HyperV because it is still in its beta. But if you

want to give it a try you can download a trial version of it along with windows

server2008 x64 RTM. We also did that.

For installing HyperV you will ofcourse require a machine which has either an

Intel VT or AMD V processor. The maximum number of cores the host machine can

take is 16 and the current max ram support is 64GB. Further you can allocate 4

cores to a single virtual machine running inside HyperV. The installation is

pretty straight forward. First, do the installation of Windows Server 2008, then

open up the Add Role Wizard and select the HyperV option. Once you do that the

machine will require a reboot. This is the point where the hypervisor is slipped

between the hardware and the OS making it a full virtualization system. Once the

machine boots back, it will run a standard wizard and will install the required

files and frontend for the system. Once done, you are ready to use it. One more

good news is that you can natively run any virtual machine created with MS VPC

or MS Virtual Server on HyperV without doing any modification. All you have to

do is to copy the existing VHD file to the machine with HyperV and boot it with

the HyperV. That's really a great thing for those who will be migrating from MS

Virtual Server or MS VPC to HyperV.

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But if you want to migrate from some other virtualization environment to

HyperV then you have to use the VMM or Virtual Machine manager for HyperV. It is

going to be released after a month of the final release of HyperV. VMM for

HyperV, very similar to VMM 2007 for MS Virtual Server will be capable of

converting from a physical machine to virtual machines or virtual machines

(other virtualization environment) to HyoerV virtual environment. But yet, no

public beta is available for it and hence we still haven't given it a try. Once

we get hold of it, we will surely come back to you with an article on it. But

for those who can't wait to know more about virtualization interiop, here is the

how-to.

The Interop dance



Is interop in virtual environments taking away your sleeps. Then this

section is for you. Following one by one we will see how you can convert any

environment to any other virtual environment.



Physical to MS VPC/MS VS/MS HyperV

The easiest option to do so will be by using a 30-day trial full functional

tool called WinImage. So that you don't have to pay any extra money for this.

You can download it from http://ourworld. compuserve.com/homepages/Gvollant/download.htm.

To start with, take the hard-disk of the machine you want to create the VM Image

of and connect it as a secondary hard-disk to the machine where you've installed

WinImage. Go to Disks Menu and click on the Option that says 'Create Virtual

Disk Image from Physical Disk...' This opens the Physical to Virtual wizard.

Follow the instruction and your physical harddisk will beconverted to a vhd

file. Wasn't that simple.

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A lightweight tool to convert your VMware

appliance into MS Virtual Hard disks
Notice that the WinImage is actually running

in a WinXP instance which is running virtually inside VirtualBox

Physical to VMware



This is a free tool from VMWare called VMWare Converter. Download it from

VMWare's website and you are on. This is a pretty feature rich tool which can

migrate any physical machine running Windows OS connected over the network to a

VMWare appliance. It can also convert appliances create by MS VPC/VS to VMWare

appliance plus it can even read backup images such as Symantec backup images and

can convert them to VMWare virtual machines.

If you are connected through ADS then all you need to do is to start the

converter's Import machine wizard from the main interface and select the option

which says “Physical Computer”. Once you proceed it will ask you for the IP

address of the machine which you want to convert into virtual and of course its

credentials so that it can connect to the machine and read the harddisk. Once

you provide it all the necessary information, it will create the virtual

harddisk over the network and save it to your local machine.

From MS Virtual Server/VPC/HyperV to VMWare



Well, it's not actually required because VMWare products can natively

recognize and run MS VHD files. So you don't actually need to convert them to

run on VMWare platform. But still if you want to do it then use the same VMWare

convert software. It can not only convert your MS VPC/VS appliances but can also

convert Symantec backup images. All you have to do is to run the same import

machine wizard which we used in the section three, but this time select the

third option which says “Stand Alone Virtual machine/ backup or disk image” and

proceed. It will ask you to provide the path of the file vhd file, do that and

your vhd is converted into vmdk.

From VMWare to Virtual Server/VPC/HyperV



This one is also a free tool and is available from http://vmtoolkit.com/files/

folders/converters/entry8.aspx. its called the vmdk converter. Using it is as

simple as downloading, unpacking and running it. It will open up a file browser

interface. Here just browse and locate any vmdk image and say ok. And believe it

or not that's all you have to do for it. But one important thing which we would

like to bring to your notice is that, this tool doesn't come with any warranty.

And we also faced some errors while converting images to vhd using this tool.

Where the tool just used to crash in between the process of conversion. But it

still works in most of the cases. So go ahead and give it a try. If it works,

great! Else better click next time.

VirtualBox to Virtual Server or VMWare



If, you have PCQLinux appliance or for that matter any other VirtualBox

appliance but don't want to shift to virtualbox for running them? Then here is

the trick. Officially there is no tool which converts a VirtualBox image into a

VMware or a Microsoft Virtual disk format which is VHD. But still you can do it

by some nasty tricks. And believe me it works.

So you must be wondering, how to do it. Ok, then let's take the first case.

You want to convert a virtualbox appliance into a vhd appliance. To begin with,

first get hold of a virtualbox virtual machine which is running windows XP. Now

add the VirtualBox appliance which you want to convert to virtual vhd as a

second harddisk to the virtual XP machine. Now install WinImage on top of the

virtual XP machine and follow the process mentioned in section 1. The winimage

software will treat the windows XP running on VirtualBox as a physical machine

and will convert the second harddisk attached to it (which is essentially a

virtualbox image), when selected into a vhd file.

Similarly if you want to convert a VirtualBox appliance into a VMWare

appliance, then do exactly as mentioned above just instead of installing

winimage on top of the virtual XP machine, this time install the VMWare

Converter and follow the section 2.

NOTE: This trick is so simple and effective that you practically can convert

any appliance created by any virtualization environment such as XEN or even qemu

or any for that matter into vhd or vmdk. We still haven't given them a try by.

If you ever give it a try then please let us know your experiences at

http://forums. pcquest.com

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