Xen: Open Source Hypervisor Designed for CloudsLars KurthCommunity Manger, Xen ProjectChairman, Xen Project Advisory BoardDirector, Open Source, Citrix lars_kurth

About Me

Was a contributor to various projects

Worked in parallel computing, tools, mobile and now virtualization

Long history in change projects

Community guy at Symbian FoundationLearned how NOT to do stuff

Community guy for the Xen ProjectWorking for CitrixAccountable to Xen Project Advisory BoardChairman of Xen Project Advisory Board

The Cloud “Problem”

IT: Pre-CloudStability is ParamountValue of IT: consistent service availability

Service capacity specified a year or more in advance

What’s up, stays up

Change is BadChange to status quo is disruptive and dangerous

IT in the CloudAvailability of Services is ParamountValue of IT: consistent service availability matching dynamic business demand

Service capacity must move with business needs

What’s up when depends on what’s needed when

Change is GoodServices must change to cover the needs of the moment

Lack of change = lack of value

Virtualization in the CloudIt must be stable

It must be secure

It must be configurable on a large scale

It must take orchestration

It must be multi-tenant

What is the Xen Project?

An Open Source Hypervisor > 10M Users

Powering some of the biggest Clouds in ProductionAmazon Web Services, Rackspace Public Cloud, Terremark, …

Several sub-projectsXen Hypervisor, XAPI management tools, Mirage OS

Linux Foundation Collaborative ProjectSponsored by Amazon Web Services, AMD, Bromium, Calxeda, CA Technologies, Cisco, Citrix, Google, Intel, NetApp, Oracle, Samsung and Verizon

10 years old

A type-1 hypervisor with a twist

VM2 VMn

Applications Applications

Guest OS Guest OS

Applications Applications

VM1 (or DomU)

Applications

Guest OS

VM0 (or Dom0)

Toolstack

Dom0 Kernel

HWCPUsMemoryI/O

Console

Scheduler MMU Timers InterruptsConfig

VM2 VMn

Applications Applications

Guest OS Guest OS

Applications Applications

VM1 (or DomU)

Applications

Guest OS

VM0 (or Dom0)

Toolstack

Dom0 Kernel

HWCPUsMemoryI/O

Drivers

Console

Scheduler MMU Timers InterruptsConfig

back PV front

VM2 VMn

Applications Applications

Guest OS Guest OS

Applications Applications

VM1 (or DomU)

Applications

Guest OS

VM0 (or Dom0)

Toolstack

Dom0 Kernel

HWCPUsMemoryI/O

QEMU

Console

Scheduler MMU Timers InterruptsConfig

DomU

DomU

DomU

Dom0

Security

Security in the Cloud

Service VM

Guest OS

Dom0

Toolstack

Dom0 Kernel

HWCPUsMemoryI/O

Scheduler MMU Timers InterruptsConfig

Example Security Features

Driver(s)

QEMU Disaggregation

Service VM

Guest OS

Dom0

Toolstack

Dom0 Kernel

HWCPUsMemoryI/O

Scheduler MMU Timers InterruptsConfig

Example Security Features

QEMU

Linux Security Modules /SELinux

Xen Security Modules /FLASK

Managing Xen

Single HostBasic Functions

Multiple HostsAdditional Functionality

Multiple HostsMore Functionality

Rich Toolstacks

Increased level of functionality and integration with other components

Toolstack / Console

Hypervisor Xen Hypervisor

XAPI / XEDefault / XL Libvirt / VIRSH

Xen

XAPI

XAPI / XEDefault / XL

Xen Hypervisor

Cloud Support

Toolstack / Console

Hypervisor

Libvirt / VIRSH

Virtualization in the CloudIt must be stable

It must be secure

It must be configurable on a large scale

It must take orchestration

It must be multi-tenant

AWS, Rackspace Public Cloud, Terremark, many others …

Tons of features: see tinyurl.com/xen-secure

Puppet, Chef, Salt, … − GUIs − APIs − Orchestration

Apache CloudStack, OpenNebula, OpenStack, …

Pools and other functionality in XAPI

Xen, XAPI, xenserver-core

& XenServer

DOM0 VM1 VMn

Guest OS Guest OS

Applications Applications

QEMU

Drivers XS Tools XS Tools

XAPI

3rd partyComponents

HA

StorageMgr

XE / XenCenter

DOM0 VM1 VMn

Guest OS Guest OS

Applications Applications

QEMU

Drivers XS Tools XS Tools

XAPI

3rd partyComponents

HA

StorageMgr

XE / XenCenter

xenserver-core packagesDOM0

QEMU

Drivers

XAPI

3rd partyComponents

HA

StorageMgr

Virtualization Base Packages(Xen, QEMU, Libvirt)

xenserver-core package(XAPI, Storage Manager, …)(Currently excluding 3rd party stuff)

Base Distro(CentOS, Debian, Ubuntu)

> yum / apt-get install …

Xen and OpenStack

April 2013: User Survey Data

71%

13%

8% 5%3%Hypervisor

KVMXen (inc. XAPI)ESXLXCHyperV

Source: http://fr.slideshare.net/openstack/havana-survey-resultsfinal-19312081 (before Xen Project and OSS XenServer)

Why?Not on Feature and Quality parity yetSignificant progress in Havanah / 13.2

Xen and XAPI not perceived to be Open SourceThis is now different

Citrix backing of Apache CloudStack Created “confusion” in the marketplaceCreated resentment by OpenStack developers

Grizzly 13.1: Hypervisor Status

Source: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/HypervisorSupportMatrix

Group A(Fully Supported)

Most Features

KVM/QEMU + LIBVIRT

Group B(Gate Tested)

Missing:Volume SwapVolume Rate Limiting

XEN + XAPI

Group C(Minimal Testing)

Missing:See table

All the others

Xen + LIBVIRT

TBDSignificant Investment

Source: http://docs.openstack.org/trunk/openstack-compute/install/yum/content/introduction-to-xen.html

Source: https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/XenServer/DevStack

DevStack:

Script to set up OS VM

Also adds:• Swift• Glance• Horizon

What Next?Havanah 2013.2:

OpenStack support for xenserver-core

More Tests; Improved Quality (moving towards Group A)

Icehouse 2014.1

Feature catch-up (not in one go)

ARM support for xenserver-core

Expanding VGPU Functionality

Desktop and Enterprise Features

Impact:

OpenStack can also run in Dom0

Closer to OpenStack Usage Model

Closer to OpenStack Development Model

More Deployment Options (Security)

OpenStack and xenserver-core

localhost

Xen CommunityAlive and kicking

2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

Developer list traffic : Q3 2003 - now

More Development Activity

Increasing Diversity

2010 2011 2012 2013 (H1)0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

UPC Spectra Logic Redhat iweb GridCentric Calxeda Fujitsu (Misc) AWS

(Academia) John Hopkins University AMD Linaro Oracle NSA Intel (Individual) Suse

Citrix

Conclusion

Xen is a great solution for the Cloud

Significant Investment in XAPI + OpenStack

As well as CloudStack

The Xen Community is accelerating

More info at: xenproject.orgevents.linuxfoundation.org/events/xen-project-developer-summit

Shameless Project Promotion

Thank You!Please rate the talk

on slideshare or twitter

www.slideshare.net/xen_com_mgr/

Flickr:

“Giant Sequoia Trees” by Raj

Wikipedia:

“Bodium Castle” by Antony McCallum

Other Images:

By Lars Kurth or acquired

Credits and Resources

Xen Project:

www.xenproject.orgwiki.xenproject.orglists.xenproject.orgxenbits.xenproject.org

@xen_org

##xen