Toward Virtual Machine Image Management for Persistent Memory

Persistent memory’s (PM) byte-addressability and high capacity will also make it emerging for virtualized environment. Modern virtual machine monitors virtualize PM using either I/O virtualization or memory virtualization. However, I/O virtualization will sacrifice PM’s byte-addressability, and memory virtualization does not get the chance of PM image management. In this article, we enhance QEMU’s memory virtualization mechanism. The enhanced system can achieve both PM’s byte-addressability inside virtual machines and PM image management outside the virtual machines. We also design pcow , a virtual machine image format for PM, which is compatible with our enhanced memory virtualization and supports storage virtualization features including thin-provisioning, base image, snapshot, and striping. Address translation is performed with the help of the Extended Page Table, thus much faster than image formats implemented in I/O virtualization. We also optimize pcow considering PM’s characteristics. We perform exhaustive performance evaluations on an x86 server equipping with Intel’s Optane DC persistent memory. The evaluation demonstrates that our scheme boosts the overall performance by up to 50× compared with qcow2, an image format implemented in I/O virtualization, and brings almost no performance overhead compared with the native memory virtualization. The striping feature can also scale-out the virtual PM’s bandwidth performance.

Virtualization Approach Theory and Application

Virtualization is a new method regarding using computing resources efficiently, by maximizing energy efficiency, extend the life of the hardware and also recycles. Virtualization technology is a system of work done by the software can merge some real physical systems into a single virtual form commonly known as virtualization without prejudice advantages over the single system. Of course, this system can reduce the amount of hardware, electrical energy consumption and time used thereby increasing the level of efficiency and effectiveness. Also, virtualization certainly reduces heat energy arising from the number of installed hardware, thereby reducing the increase in temperature geothermal (Global Warming). Some virtualization includes Server Virtualization, Network Virtualization, Memory Virtualization, Grid Computing, Application Virtualization, Storage Virtualization, Virtualization and Thin Client Platform.