Abstract
Internet-based virtual computing environment (iVCE) has been proposed to combine data centers and other kinds of computing resources on the Internet to provide efficient and economical services. Virtual machines (VMs) have been widely used in iVCE to isolate different users/jobs and ensure trustworthiness, but traditionally VMs require a long period of time for booting, which cannot meet the requirement of iVCE’s large-scale and highly dynamic applications. To address this problem, in this paper we design and implement VirtMan, a fast booting system for a large number of virtual machines in iVCE. VirtMan uses the Linux Small Computer System Interface (SCSI) target to remotely mount to the source image in a scalable hierarchy, and leverages the homogeneity of a set of VMs to transfer only necessary image data at runtime. We have implemented VirtMan both as a standalone system and for OpenStack. In our 100-server testbed, VirtMan boots up 1000 VMs (with a 15 GB image of Windows Server 2008) on 100 physical servers in less than 120 s, which is three orders of magnitude lower than current public clouds.
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Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 61379055 and 61379053)
ORCID: Yi-ming ZHANG, http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6450-8485
Yi-ming ZHANG, corresponding author of this paper, received the China Computer Federation (CCF) Distinguished PhD Dissertation Award in 2011. He is currently an associate professor in the National Laboratory for Parallel and Distributed Processing, School of Computer, National University of Defense Technology (NUDT), China. His current research interests include cloud computing and operating systems.
Xi-cheng LU, Editor-in-Chief of Frontiers of Information Technology & Electronic Engineering, received the B.Sc. degree in computer science from Harbin Military Engineering Institute, Harbin, China, in 1970. He was a visiting scholar at the University of Massachusetts between 1982 and 1984. He is currently a professor in the School of Computer, National University of Defense Technology, China. His research interests include distributed computing, computer networks, and parallel computing. He has served as a member of editorial boards of several journals and has cochaired many professional conferences. He is a joint recipient of more than a dozen academic awards, including four First-Class National Scientific and Technological Progress Prize of China. He is a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
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Li, Zy., Zhang, Ym., Li, Ds. et al. VirtMan: design and implementation of a fast booting system for homogeneous virtual machines in iVCE. Frontiers Inf Technol Electronic Eng 17, 110–121 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1500216
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1631/FITEE.1500216