Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Optimizing I/O Intensive Domain Handling in Xen Hypervisor for Consolidated Server Environments

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Green, Pervasive, and Cloud Computing

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 9663))

Abstract

Consolidation of servers through virtualization, facilitated by the use of hypervisors, allows multiple servers to share a single hardware platform. Xen is a widely preferred hypervisor, mainly, due to its dual virtualization modes, virtual machine migration support and scalability. This paper involves an analysis of the virtual CPU (vCPU) scheduling algorithms in Xen, on the basis of their performance while handling compute intensive or I/O intensive domains in virtualized server environments. Based on this knowledge, the selection of CPU scheduler in a hypervisor can be aligned with the requirements of the hosted applications. We introduce a new credit-based vCPU scheduling strategy, which allows the vCPUs of I/O intensive domains to supersede other vCPUs, in order to favor the reduction of I/O bound domain response times and the subsequent bottleneck in the CPU run queue. The results indicate substantial improvement of I/O handling and fair resource allocation between the host and guest domains.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). Data Center Energy Assessment Report (2014). https://www.nrdc.org/energy/files/data-center-efficiency-assessment-IP.pdf

  2. Hussain, T., Habib, S.: A redesign methodology for storage management virtualization. In: IFIP/IEEE International Symposium on Integrated Network Management (IM), pp. 676–679 (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Barham, P., Dragovic, B., Fraser, K., et al.: Xen and the art of virtualization. In: 19th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, pp. 164–177 (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Duda, K.J., Cheriton, D.R.: Borrowed-virtual-time (BVT) scheduling: supporting latency-sensitive threads in a general-purpose scheduler. In: 17th ACM SIGOPS Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, pp. 261–276 (1999)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Leslie, I.M., McAuley, D., Black, R., Roscoe, T., Barham, P., Evers, D., Fairbairns, R., Hyden, E.: The design and implementation of an operating system to support distributed multimedia applications. IEEE J. Sel. Areas Commun. 14(7), 1280–1297 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Jansen, P.G., Mullender, S.J., Havinga, P.J., Scholten, H.: Lightweight EDF scheduling with deadline inheritance. University of Twente (2003). http://doc.utwente.nl/41399/

  7. VanderLeest, S.H.: ARINC 653 hypervisor. In: 29th IEEE/AIAA Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), pp. 5.E.2-1–5.E.2-20 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Credit Scheduler. http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/CreditScheduler

  9. Isolation Benchmark Suite. http://web2.clarkson.edu/class/cs644/isolation/index.html

  10. IOzone Filesystem Benchmark. http://www.iozone.org/

  11. IOzone Documentation. http://www.iozone.org/docs/IOzone_msword_98.pdf

  12. Netperf. http://www.netperf.org/netperf/training/Netperf.html

  13. Sysbench Benchmark Tool. https://dev.mysql.com/downloads/benchmarks.html

  14. Uddin, M., Rahman, A.: Energy efficiency and low carbon enabler green IT framework for data centers considering green metrics. Renew. Sustain. Energy Rev. 16(6), 4078–4094 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Cheng, K., Bai, Y., Wang, R., Ma, Y.: Optimizing Soft real-time scheduling performance for virtual machines with SRT-Xen. In: 15th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Cluster, Cloud and Grid Computing (CCGrid), pp. 169–178 (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Qu, H., Liu, X., Xu, H.: A workload-aware resources scheduling method for virtual machine. Int. J. Grid Distrib. Comput. 8(1), 247–258 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. This work is partly supported by NSERC Grant CRDPJ 445731-12.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

    Venkataramanan Venkatesh & Amiya Nayak

Authors
  1. Venkataramanan Venkatesh
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Amiya Nayak
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Amiya Nayak .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China

    Xinyi Huang

  2. Deakin University, Burwood, Australia

    Yang Xiang

  3. Providence University, Taichung, Taiwan

    Kuan-Ching Li

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

About this paper

Cite this paper

Venkatesh, V., Nayak, A. (2016). Optimizing I/O Intensive Domain Handling in Xen Hypervisor for Consolidated Server Environments. In: Huang, X., Xiang, Y., Li, KC. (eds) Green, Pervasive, and Cloud Computing. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9663. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39077-2_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39077-2_12

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-39076-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-39077-2

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation