vbacd july 2012 - xen cloud platform
DESCRIPTION
"Xen Cloud Platform”, Mike McClurg, Senior Engineer, Xen.org Engineering The Xen Cloud Platform is an open-source, enterprise-ready server virtualization platform. It is based on the Xen hypervisor, and represents the common code base for Citrix's XenServer product line. This presentation gives an introduction to XCP, and how it relates to both the Xen hypervisor and to Citrix's XenServer. It covers XCP's XenAPI and how it can be used by two of the most popular cloud orchestration frameworks, CloudStack and OpenStack. Finally, it discusses the XCP "roadmap," and the plans for the future of XCP.TRANSCRIPT
A Brief History of Xen in the Cloud
The XenoServer project is buildingpublic infrastructure for wide-area distributed computing. We envisage a world in which XenoServer execution platforms will be scattered across the globe and available for any member of the public to submit code for execution.
Global Public Computing
“This dissertation proposes a new distributed computing paradigm, termed global public computing, which allows
any user to run any code anywhere. Such platforms price computing resources, and ultimately charge users for resources consumed.“
Evangelos Kotsovinos, PhD dissertation, 2004
Late 90s
XenoServer Project(Cambridge Univ.)
A Brief History of Xen in the Cloud
Oct ‘03
Xen Presented at SOSP
XCP 1.1Released
‘08‘06
Amazon EC2and Slicehostlaunched
RackspaceCloud
Late 90s
XenoServer Project(Cambridge Univ.)
‘09 ‘11
Xen Cloud PlatformAnnounced
‘12
XCP packagesin Linux
‘04
XenSource founded
The Xen Hypervisor was designed for the Cloud straight from the outset!
Basic Xen Concepts
7
Xen Hypervisor
Control domain (dom0)
Host HW
VMn
VM1
VM0
Guest OSand Apps
Console
Memory CPUsI/O
Scheduler, MMU
One or moredriver, stub or service domains
Control Domain – aka Dom0• Talks to hypervisor, manages guests• Xen Management Toolstack• Small Trusted Computing Base
Guest Domains• Your virtual machines• E.g. your cloud management stack
Driver/Stub/Service Domain(s)• A “driver, device model or control
service in a box”• De-privileged and isolated• Lifetime: start, stop, kill
Dom0 Kernel
Toolstack
8
Xen Variants for Server & CloudXen Hypervisor XCP
Default / XL (XM)Toolstack / Console Libvirt / VIRSH XAPI / XE
Products Oracle VM Huawei UVP Citrix XenServer
Get Binaries from … Linux Distros Linux Distros Debian & Ubuntu
XCP from Xen.org
Used by … ManyOthers
XCP: The Xen Cloud Platform
The Xen Cloud Platform is... Open source distribution of
Citrix’s XenServer Complete vertical stack for server
virtualization Distributed as a “black-box” style
appliance based on CentOS 5.X Datacenter and cloud-ready
management API
• XAPI is the backbone of XCP– The XenAPI server– Provides the glue between all components– Is the backend for all management applications
• It's a XML-RPC style API– Provided by a service on every XCP dom0 host– Designed to by highly programmable– API bindings for many languages: C#/.NET, Java, C, Powershell, Python
• XAPI is extensible via plugins– E.g. used by CloudStack and OpenStack
XAPI: What is it?
XCP Feature Overview• VM lifecycle: live snapshots, checkpoint, migration • Resource pools: flexible storage and networking• Event tracking: progress, notification • Upgrade and patching capabilities • Real-time performance monitoring and alerting• Built-in support and templates for Windows and Linux guests• Paravirtualized drivers optimized for Windows VMs• OpenFlow support with Open vSwitch built-in
• XAPI frontend command line tool: xe (tab-completable, scriptable) • Desktop GUIs
o Citrix XenCenter (Windows-only)o OpenXenManager (open source cross-platform XenCenter clone)
• Web interfaceso Xen VNC Proxy (XVP) o XenWebManager (web-based clone of OpenXenManager)
• XCP Ecosystem:o xen.org/community/vendors/XCPProjectsPage.htmlo xen.org/community/vendors/XCPProductsPage.html
XAPI Management Options
XCP and Cloud Orchestration Stacks
XCP New Developments
XCP-XAPI Packages in Linux• Make the XAPI toolstack independent of CentOS 5.5• Extend the delivery model
– Deliver Xen, XAPI and everything in between (storage manager, network support, OCaml libs, etc.) via your favorite Linux distro
“apt-get install xcp-xapi” or “yum install xcp-xapi”
• Debian 7.0 “Wheezy"• Ubuntu 12.04 LTS• Next: Fedora & CentOS
• Internal Improvements: Xen 4.1, GPT, smaller Dom0
• GPU pass through: for VMs serving high end graphics
• Performance and Scalability: – 1 TB mem/host– 16 VCPUs/VM, 128 GB/VM
• Networking: Open vSwitch backend, Active-Backup NIC Bonding
• More guest OS templates: Ubuntu 10.04, Debian Squeeze, Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.0, SLES 10 SP4
XCP 1.5 (beta) features
• Internal Improvements: Xen 4.1.2, CentOS 5.7 with kernel 2.6.32.43, Open vSwitch 1.4.1
• New format Windows drivers: installable by Windows Update Service
• Networking: Better VLAN scalability, LACP bonding, IPv6
• More guest OS templates: Ubuntu Precise 12.04, RHEL/CentOS, Oracle Enterprise Linux 6.1 & 6.2, Windows 8
• Storage XenMotion:– Migrate VMs between hosts or pools without shared storage– Move a VM’s disks between storage repositories while the VM is running
XCP 1.6 – to ship in Sep/Oct 12
Storage XenMotion in pictures
Live Storage XenMotion
XCP Host
Live Virtual
Machine
VDI(s)
Moving VMs between storage tiers or upgrading storage
XCP Pool 2XCP Pool 1
Live Storage XenMotion
Local Storage
Moving or rebalancing VMs between Pools (Local Local)
XenServer HypervisorXenServer HypervisorXCP Host
Local Storage
XenServer HypervisorXenServer HypervisorXCP Host
Live Virtual
Machine
VDI(s)
XCP Pool 2XCP Pool 1
Live Storage XenMotion
Local Storage
Moving or rebalancing VMs between Pools (Local SAN)
XenServer HypervisorXenServer HypervisorXCP Host
XenServer HypervisorXenServer HypervisorXCP Host
Live Virtual
Machine
VDI(s)
FC, iSCSI, NFS SAN
The New Architecture
• Split Control Domain into Driver, Stub and Service Domains– Each domain – a separate VM – contains a specific management server– See: “Breaking up is hard to do” @ Xen Papers on wiki.xen.org
• Unique benefit of the Xen architecture– Security: Minimum privilege; Narrow interfaces– Robustness: ability to safely restart parts of the system (such as Xapi itself)– Scalability: more distributed system (less reliable on Dom0)
• Currently used by Qubes OS and Citrix XenClient XT (secure client virt)• We’ll be laying the framework for disaggregation in XCP 1.6
Domain 0 Disaggregation
Questions…
• IRC: #xen-api on Freenode• Mailing List: [email protected]• Wiki: http://wiki.xen.org
– Beginners & User Categories– XCP Category
• Excellent XCP Tutorials– A day worth of material @
http://xen.org/community/xenday11
Slides available under CC-BY-SA 3.0Modified from www.slideshare.net/xen_com_mgr