Evaluating the Effectiveness of Memory Overcommit Techniques on KVM-based Hosting Platform
Determining how many virtual machines a Linux host
could run can be a challenge. One of tough missions is to find the
balance among performance, density and usability. Now KVM
hypervisor has become the most popular open source full
virtualization solution. It supports several ways of running guests with
more memory than host really has. Due to large differences between
minimum and maximum guest memory requirements, this paper
presents initial results on same-page merging, ballooning and live
migration techniques that aims at optimum memory usage on
KVM-based cloud platform. Given the design of initial experiments,
the results data is worth reference for system administrators. The
results from these experiments concluded that each method offers
different reliability tradeoff.
[1] Manage resources on overcommitted KVM hosts,
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-overcommit-kvm-re
sources/.
[2] A. Arcangeli, I. Eidus and C. Wright, "Increasing memory density by
using KSM," Available at:
http://www.kernel.org/doc/ols/2009/ols2009-pages-19-28.pdf.
[3] J. H. Schopp, K. Fraser and M. J. Silbermann, "Resizing Memory With
Balloons and Hotplug," Available at:
http://www.kernel.org/doc/ols/2006/ols2006v2-pages-313-320.pdf.
[4] R. Rose, "Survey of System Virtualization Techniques," Available at:
http://www. robertwrose.com/vita/rose-virtualization.pdf, 2004.
[5] Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) Best practice for KVM, Available at:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/lnxinfo/v3r0m0/topic/liaat/liaat
bestpractices_pdf.pdf.
[6] L. Nussbaum, O. Mornard, F. Anhalt, J. P. Gelas, "Linux-based
virtualization for HPC clusters," Available at:
http://www.loria.fr/~lnussbau/files/linux-virtualization-mls09.pdf
[7] Kernel-based Virtual Machine,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel-based_Virtual_Machine/
[8] Neil Smyth, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Essentials, 2010, ch. 21.
[9] B. Sotomayor, R. S. Montero, I. M. Llorente, and I. Foster, "Capacity
Leasing in Cloud System using the OpenNebula Engine," Cloud
Computing and Applications, 2008. Chicago, Illinois, USA.
[10] P. Sempolinski and D. Thain, "A Comparison and Critique of Eucalyptus,
OpenNebula and Nimbus," in Proc. CloudCom-2010, pp.417-426.
[11] S. Seyfried, "Resource Management in Linux with Control Groups,"
Available at:
http://www.linux-kongress.org/2010/slides/seyfried-cgroups-linux-kongr
ess-2010-presentation.pdf.
[1] Manage resources on overcommitted KVM hosts,
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-overcommit-kvm-re
sources/.
[2] A. Arcangeli, I. Eidus and C. Wright, "Increasing memory density by
using KSM," Available at:
http://www.kernel.org/doc/ols/2009/ols2009-pages-19-28.pdf.
[3] J. H. Schopp, K. Fraser and M. J. Silbermann, "Resizing Memory With
Balloons and Hotplug," Available at:
http://www.kernel.org/doc/ols/2006/ols2006v2-pages-313-320.pdf.
[4] R. Rose, "Survey of System Virtualization Techniques," Available at:
http://www. robertwrose.com/vita/rose-virtualization.pdf, 2004.
[5] Kernel Virtual Machine (KVM) Best practice for KVM, Available at:
http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/lnxinfo/v3r0m0/topic/liaat/liaat
bestpractices_pdf.pdf.
[6] L. Nussbaum, O. Mornard, F. Anhalt, J. P. Gelas, "Linux-based
virtualization for HPC clusters," Available at:
http://www.loria.fr/~lnussbau/files/linux-virtualization-mls09.pdf
[7] Kernel-based Virtual Machine,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel-based_Virtual_Machine/
[8] Neil Smyth, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 Essentials, 2010, ch. 21.
[9] B. Sotomayor, R. S. Montero, I. M. Llorente, and I. Foster, "Capacity
Leasing in Cloud System using the OpenNebula Engine," Cloud
Computing and Applications, 2008. Chicago, Illinois, USA.
[10] P. Sempolinski and D. Thain, "A Comparison and Critique of Eucalyptus,
OpenNebula and Nimbus," in Proc. CloudCom-2010, pp.417-426.
[11] S. Seyfried, "Resource Management in Linux with Control Groups,"
Available at:
http://www.linux-kongress.org/2010/slides/seyfried-cgroups-linux-kongr
ess-2010-presentation.pdf.
@article{"International Journal of Information, Control and Computer Sciences:59899", author = "Chin-Hung Li", title = "Evaluating the Effectiveness of Memory Overcommit Techniques on KVM-based Hosting Platform", abstract = "Determining how many virtual machines a Linux host
could run can be a challenge. One of tough missions is to find the
balance among performance, density and usability. Now KVM
hypervisor has become the most popular open source full
virtualization solution. It supports several ways of running guests with
more memory than host really has. Due to large differences between
minimum and maximum guest memory requirements, this paper
presents initial results on same-page merging, ballooning and live
migration techniques that aims at optimum memory usage on
KVM-based cloud platform. Given the design of initial experiments,
the results data is worth reference for system administrators. The
results from these experiments concluded that each method offers
different reliability tradeoff.", keywords = "Kernel-based Virtual Machine, Overcommit,
Virtualization.", volume = "6", number = "10", pages = "1255-5", }