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VIRTUALIZATION
Ths. Trương Thị Ngọc Phượng

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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
Understand the basics of virtualization

Understand how the different resources such as processors, memory, storage, and network
can be virtualized

Understand the pros and cons of different approaches to virtualization

Understand the basics of hypervisor and its security issues.

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Understand how cloud computing is different from virtualization

Understand how cloud computing leverages the virtualization for its different service models.

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LEARING CONTENTS
All the concepts you will learn today!

Virtualization Approaches to
Introduction
Opportunities Virtualization

From Virtualization
Hypervisors
To Cloud Computing

page 4
LEARING CONTENTS
All the concepts you will learn today!

Virtualization Approaches to
Introduction
Opportunities Virtualization

From Virtualization
Hypervisors
To Cloud Computing

page 5
 Introduction
• Virtualization is a technology that enables the single physical infrastructure
to function as a multiple logical infrastructure or resources.

• Virtualization is the process of abstracting the physical resources to the pool

of virtual resources that can be given to any virtual machines (VMs).

• Virtualization can take many forms:

• Memory
• Processor
• I/O
• Network
• OS
• Data
• Application
Introduction
Introduction
Virtualization’s Benefits
• Better Resource Utilization
• Increases ROI
• Dynamic Data Center
• Supports Green IT
• Eases administration
• Improve disaster recovery
Virtualization’s Drawbacks
• Single point of failures
• Demand high – end and powerful infrastructure
• May lead to lower performance
• Requires specialized skill set.
LEARING CONTENTS
All the concepts you will learn today!

Virtualization Approaches to
Introduction
Opportunities Virtualization

From Virtualization
Hypervisors
To Cloud Computing

page 11
 Virtualization Opportunities

Processor Virtualization can be achieved from Main Memory Virtualization can be achieved by using
distributed servers. the hypervisor software.
 Virtualization Opportunities

Storage virtualization is mainly used for maintaining a Network virtualization can be achieved from internal
backup or replica of the data that are stored on the network or by combining many external networks
VMs.
 Virtualization Opportunities

Data virtualization hides the type of the data and the The application virtualization offers the ability to
location of the data for the application that access it. the user to use the application without the need to
install any software or tools in the machine.
LEARING CONTENTS
All the concepts you will learn today!

Virtualization Approaches to
Introduction
Opportunities Virtualization

From Virtualization
Hypervisors
To Cloud Computing

page 15
Protection Rings in Oss
Ring 0 contains the programs that are
most privileged, and ring 3 contains the
programs that are least privileged.

The highly trusted OS instructions will

run in ring 0, and it has unrestricted
access to physical resources. Ring 3
contains the untrusted user applications,
and it has restricted access to physical
resources.
The other two rings (ring 1 and ring 2)
are allotted for device drivers.

 Depending on the type of virtualization, the hypervisor and

guest OS will run in different privilege levels
Type 1: Full Virtualization
The hypervisor or VMM resides at
ring 0 and provides all the virtual
infrastructures needed for VMs.

The guest OS cannot communicate to

the physical infrastructure directly 
requires the help of hypervisors to
communicate with the underlying
infrastructure.
There are 2 types of full virtualization:
• Binary Translation – Full Virtualization
• Hardware – Assisted – Full
Virtualization
Software – Assisted Full Virtualization
Type 2: ParaVirtualization
The guest OS knows that it is running in
virtualized environment in
paravirtualization
The paravirtualization replaces the
translation of nonvirtualized OS requests
with hypercalls.

Hypercalls are similar to system calls

and used for the direct communication
between OS and hypervisor
Para Virtualization
Type 3: Hardware – Assisted
Virtualization
Comparison
LEARING CONTENTS
All the concepts you will learn today!

Virtualization Approaches to
Introduction
Opportunities Virtualization

From Virtualization
Hypervisors
To Cloud Computing

page 23
Hypervisors
• Hypervisors are the software tools that sit in
between VMs and physical infrastructure and
provide the required virtual infrastructure for VMs.

• There are different hypervisors that are being

used in the IT industry.

• Some of the examples are VMware, Xen, Hyper-

V, KVM, and OpenVZ
Types of Hypervisors
• With the help of hypervisors, many OSs can run
and share a single hardware.

• Hypervisors are generally classified into two

categories:
• Type 1 or bare metal hypervisors runs directly on the
hardware.
• Type 2 or hosted hypervisors runs on host OS.
Type 1 Hypervisor
This type of hypervisors is used for
servers that handle heavy load and
require more security.

Some examples of type 1 hypervisors

include Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix
XenServer, VMWare ESXi, and Oracle
VM Server for SPARC
Type 2 Hypervisor
These types of hypervisors are installed
on the host OS as a software program.

This type of hypervisors requires the

host OS and does not have direct
access to the physical hardware

The major disadvantage of this

approach is if the host OS fails or
crashes, it also results in crashing of
VMs.
Examples of type 2 hypervisors include
VMWare Workstation and Oracle
Virtualbox.
Summary of Hypervisors
Security Issues and Recommendation
• Type 1: it is very difficult to perform the attack as it is
deployed directly on the hardware.

• Type 2: It is more vulnerable to the attacks as

hypervisors are running on top of the host OSs.

• There are two possibilities of attacking the hypervisor:

• Through the host OS
• Through the guest OS
Security Issues and Recommendation
• Attack through the host OS:
• Attacks from the host OS can be performed by exploiting the
vulnerabilities of the host OS.
• Once the OS gets compromised, the attackers have full control over
the applications running on top of the OS.
• Once the attacker gets full control over the hypervisor through the
compromised OS, the attacker will be able to run all the privileged
instructions that can control the actual hardware.
• The attacker can do the following malicious activities:
• Denial of service attack, where the attacker can deny the virtual
resources when there is a request from the new VM.
• Stealing the confidential information that is stored in the VMs
Security Issues and Recommendation
• Attack through the host OS:
Security Issues and Recommendation
• Attack through the guest OS:
• The hypervisor can also be compromised or attacked from the
malicious script from the compromised guest OS.
• This type of attack is possible in both type 1 and type 2 hypervisors.
• After the hypervisor gets compromised, the attacker can do the
following malicious activities:
• Get the unauthorized access to the other VMs that share the
physical hardware.
• Attacker can utilize the hardware resources fully to launch resource
exhaustion attacks, etc.
Security Issues and Recommendation
• Attack through the guest host:
Security Issues and Recommendation
• Recommendations to avoid hypervisor attacks:
• Update the hypervisor software and the host OS regularly.
• Disconnect the unused physical resources from the host system or
hypervisor.
• Enable least privilege to the hypervisor and guest OS to avoid the
attacks through unauthorized access.
• Deploy the monitoring tools in the hypervisor to detect/prevent
malicious activities.
• Strong guest isolation.
• Employ mandatory access control policies.
LEARING CONTENTS
All the concepts you will learn today!

Virtualization Approaches to
Introduction
Opportunities Virtualization

From Virtualization
Hypervisors
To Cloud Computing

page 35
From Virtualization to Cloud Computing
• Virtualization and Cloud Computing are not the same:
• Type of service: Virtualization offers more infrastructure services rather
than platform and application services. Cloud computing offers all
infrastructure (IaaS), platform (PaaS), and software (SaaS) services.

• Service delivery: The service delivery in cloud computing is on

demand and allows the end users to use the cloud services as per the
need. But virtualization is not made for on-demand services.

• Service provisioning: In cloud computing, automated and self-service

provisioning is possible for the end users, whereas in virtualization, it is
not possible and a lot of manual work is required from the providers or
system administrator to provide services to the end users.
From Virtualization to Cloud Computing
• Virtualization and Cloud Computing are not the same:
• Service orchestration: Cloud computing allows the service
orchestration and service composition to meet end user requirements.
Some providers are also providing automated service orchestration to
the end users. But in virtualization, orchestrating different service to get
composite services is not possible.
• Elasticity: In cloud computing, we can add or remove the infrastructure
dynamically according to the need, and adding or removing the
infrastructure is automatic. But virtualization fails to provide elasticity as
stopping and starting a VM is manual and is also difficult.
• Targeted audience: Cloud computing targets the service providers for
high resource utilization and improved ROI. In the case of virtualization,
the targeted audience is only the service providers or IT owners, not
the end users.
From Virtualization to Cloud
Computing
From Virtualization to Cloud
Computing
From Virtualization to Cloud
Computing
THANKS
Số 1, Võ Văn Ngân, Thủ Đức, TPHCM

[email protected]

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