Xen and the Art of Virtualization - University of Cambridge

← Back to document page

XenandtheArt ofVirtualizationPaulBarham , Boris Dragovic, KeirFraser, StevenHand,TimHarris,Alex Ho, RolfNeugebauery, IanPratt,Andrew War eldUniversityof CambridgeComputerLaboratory15JJThomsonAv enue, Cambridge , UK,CB30FDf beendesignedwhichusevirtualizationtosubd ividetheampleresourcesofa moderncomputer. Somerequirespecializedhardware, offerresourceisolationorperformanceguara ntees;mostpro-videonlybest-effortprovisi oning, ,anx86virtualmachinemonitorwhichallowsmu ltiplecommodityoperatingsystemsto shareconventionalhardwareina safeandresourcemanagedfashion,butwithout sac-ri cingeitherperformanceorfunctionality. Thisisachievedbyprovidinganidealizedvirt ualmachineabstractiontowhichoper-atingsy stemssuchasLinux,BSDandWindowsXP, targetedathostingupto100virtualmachinein -stancessimultaneouslyona modernserver.

providing an idealized virtual machine abstraction to which oper-ating systems such as Linux, BSD and Windows XP, can be ported with minimal effort. Our design is targeted at hosting up to 100 virtual machine in-stances simultaneously on a modern server. The virtualization ap-proach taken by Xen is extremely efcient: we allow operating sys-

  Design, Virtualization, Abstraction, And the art of virtualization