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Virtualization in HPC
Minesh Joshi
CSC 469
Dr. Box
Feb 1, 2012
Introduction
• HPC differ from type of server and the workloads at the
workstation
• Hardware virtualization has been an important factor
• Virtualization helps in advancing the power or HPC
• HPC operating systems preserve the legacy compatibility
• Multiple operating systems can coexist on one physical
machine
• Machine is multiplexed by a small privileged kernel, known as
hypervisor or virtual machine monitor (VMM)
• VMM gives illusion of one or more machines
• Coexistence of operating systems avoids
incompatibilities, reduces testing and upgrade costs.
• Virtualization enables the specification of operating
systems with full control over hardware resources.
• Hypervisor multiplexes the hardware resources
• HPC application can bypass legacy OS mechanisms and
algorithms.
• Virtual machines communicate via low-overhead and
low-latency communication mechanism
Productivity
• Hypervisor allows VM to monitor state, interrupts
and communications of another VM
• Hypervisor can provide a virtual cluster of VMs
• Productivity can be enhanced by using virtual
cluster
• Virtual reboot avoids the latencies of hardware
re-initialization by the BIOS
• Decrease the start up time for the system by
shipping VM image to all nodes in cluster
Performance
• Software pre-virtualization
• Specifying memory address translations
• Supports OSes Optimized for classes of HPC
applications
• Hypervisor can guarantee resource allocations to a VM
• Allocation of fixed percentage of CPU cycles, or
maximum latency
• Interrupts handling code for a real time VM
• Concurrent running of virtual cluster communicates
nodes in real time
• Focus on checkpoint/restart capability
• High priority work, inter-node migration of
work in a cluster for load balancing
• Preemption allows real-time HPC
• These scenarios prosper the system
availability
• Prevent long running HPC application loss
Security
• VM isolation provides a platform for building
secure system
• Isolated VM have no unauthorized interaction
• Inrospection is used to monitor the
communication and state of VM
• Only trusted program loaded into an isolated
VM
Software complexity
• Hypervisor-based systems can reduce the
complexity of software development
• Hypervisor should be sta
• ble than usual OS
• Hardware and software initialization done only
once
• Maintenance of the system becomes more
automated
• Gradually leads to improved software quality
Conclusion
• Virtualization helps HPC systems and
applications
• Productivity, performance, reliability,
availability, security, and simplicity