XenSource XenEnterprise 3.1 hardware assisted server virtualization software introduction and installation for HP ProLiant servers

Short Description
Server virtualization methods are rapidly evolving as multiple hardware and software companies compete to deliver the solution required to address the challenges of today’s enterprise data centers and of small and medium business markets. This document specifically addresses x64 server virtualization, enabling the consolidation of multiple operating systems with software from XenSource on HP hardware.

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Content
XenSource offers other software products including XenServer and XenExpress which provide a subset of the functionality found within XenEnterprise. This document contrasts XenEnterprise 3.1 to other server virtualization technologies to provide the reader with the value and benefits of XenEnterprise 3.1.
Server virtualization
As Moore’s law continues to prove true, the performance of a single server often exceeds the data center’s requirements for a given application or set of applications. While the number of logical systems required for the data center continues to grow, the utilization of individual servers continues to diminish. Contemporary multi-core scaling of processors exacerbates the performance disparity, as many applications can not make use of the large number of cores these systems provide. Through server virtualization, multiple operating systems may execute concurrently on a single server, addressing this dissonance. The resulting consolidated server may support several separate operating systems and applications while providing the required performance, security and reliability from a small subset of physical servers.
Hardware assisted virtualization
Intel and AMD have both released hardware-assisted virtualization technologies. While there are differences between the capabilities, each improves the performance of server virtualization by reducing the complexity of software required for implementing processor virtualization. XenEnterprise 3.1 leverages hardware-assisted virtualization on Intel or AMD processors that support hardware assisted virtualization.
Paravirtualization
Paravirtualization is a software approach to reducing disk or network virtualization overhead. By leveraging XenSource device drivers installed into the guest operating system, virtualization overhead of the network and disk I/O may be reduced. This approach may be leveraged to extend the features and support of the hypervisor. For example, drivers may be required for optimized memory management within a virtual machine.
Native OS support
Server virtualization software that supports an unmodified guest operating system provides native OS support. Depending on the requirements of the guest operating system, XenEnterprise may provide native OS support or leverage a paravirtualization approach.
Software emulation of hardware
Another approach to server virtualization is software emulation of hardware. This approach has enabled several software companies to produce products that allow multiple, unmodified, guest operating systems to concurrently execute on a single server with legacy processors. Depending on the application, this may result in a more computationally intensive method than hardware-assisted virtualization or paravirtualization and thus the virtualization overhead may be larger. XenEnterprise 3.1 leverages hardware-assisted virtualization, when available, and paravirtualization as required, for legacy processors to ensure low virtualization overhead.
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