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Getting Started with Virtualization

Bill Kalarness

ASQ-CMQ/OE, ASQ-CSQE

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Overview

This presentation will explain the concept of Virtualization and will focus on Virtual Machines.

How they can be leveraged to create efficient testing environments.

Points to consider as you begin preparing your plan to introduce virtual machines into your testing strategy.

This presentation is best suited for Software QA and Test managers, QA engineers, or others who have heard about Virtualization and want to know more about it.

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What is Virtualization?

Virtualization refers to the abstraction of computer resources.

Virtualization can be applied to many computing areas:

Applications - encapsulating applications so they can run on different operating systems (e.g., using Wine to run Windows programs on Linux, or Rosetta to run PowerPC programs on Intel Mac systems).

Storage – a pool of storage is created, which is shared across multiple systems.

Memory – the RAM from multiple systems is used to create a pool that is shared among the systems, depending on their need.

Platforms –Virtual Machines (VMs), where system hardware is fully virtualized.

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Full Virtualization via Virtual Machines

There are many reasons to use fully virtualized VMs.

Each physical machine can host one or more guest machines.

Each guest VM is isolated from any others, this helps to ensure reliability and promotes security for data and the network.

Server Consolidation is a popular technique for reducing hardware costs while increasing utilization of existing resources. Also allows the migration of legacy systems and data to newer, more efficient hardware platforms.

Enterprises are using Server Consolidation to reduce their hardware footprint of their datacenter(s), which can reduce their energy and cooling requirements and simplify IT administration.

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Virtual Machines

Within Software QA/Testing – Virtual Machines are tremendously useful!

Each VM represents an environment in a known state that can easily be restored during or after testing.

Can use “Snapshot” features to record restore points to easily recover from a system software upgrade or patch.

Can be automated to reduce the time spent tediously installing software or testing installations.

Can be used to quickly assemble testing networks.

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Virtual Machines – Network example

Example showing virtual machines networked to host machine.

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Virtual Machines – Network example 2

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Common Virtualization Platforms

VMware Windows – VMware Workstation, VMware Server, VMware ESXi, and others.

Mac – VMware Fusion

VirtualBox (Sun) Cross-platform, can be run on Windows, Linux, Macintosh, and OpenSolaris

hosts.

Supports BSD, Linux, OpenSolaris, and Windows guest Operating Systems.

Parallels Windows – Parallels Workstation

Mac – Parallels Desktop for Mac

Many others… Microsoft, Virtual Iron, Win4Lin, and Xen.

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Prepare Your Plan

VM Naming Convention – include a description within the virtual machine.

Storage and Backup of VMs

Sparseimage disks or fully allocated? Need to know this to determine the best storage location. Engage your IT folks!

Networked library of VMs… Where? Who has access? VM Checkin/Checkout? Engage your IT folks! (Not a typo.)

“Standard” software to be installed (Antivirus & security software – to be installed off-line).

Operating Systems (ensure compliance with licensing requirements, also applies to any other installed software.)

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Prepare Your Plan – Example

Example - Naming convention and storage.

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Building your VMs

You will have the opportunity to configure the following aspects of each VM:

Number of virtual processors to use. There is typically support for 1, 2,or 4.

System memory (RAM) that the VM will consume during use.

Hard disk settings

Hard disk space that the VM will consume – Sparseimage or allocate all space at once.

Depending on the virtualization platform you are running, you may be able to connect your VM to a physical disk for better performance.

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Building your VMs - Continued

Network settings – NAT, Bridged, Host-Only, or none. (Can be altered at any time.)

Advanced Settings enable you to define/assign your own MAC address.

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Building your VMs - Continued

Add/Remove devices – Might want to add/remove a floppy, Serial, or Parallel port. You can add additional Hard Disks, CD/DVD, Network interfaces…

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Building your VMs – Continued

Create clones to minimize the time required to set up multiple identical or related VMs.

Simply a copy of an existing VM.

Changes made to the clone will not affect the parent and vica-versa.

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VM Storage and Backup

VMs exist as files on the host systems

Backup can be as simple as making a copy of the VM files to a central location

You could consider backup deduplication.

Hardware based backup/deduplication devices claim to achieve a 200:1 data compression ratio with deduplication.

Most of the VM contents will not change during the normal backup interval – mostly OS files. Deduplication of these backups can save massive amounts of disk space.

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References

Virtualization Platforms VMware: www.vmware.com

VirtualBox: www.virtualbox.org

Microsoft: www.microsoft.com/virtualization

Xen: www.xen.org

Lists: Platform Virtualization – top 25 providers (hardware, software, combined) http://www.mytestbox.com/miscellaneous/platform-virtualization-software-services-hardware-providers/

Wikipedia: Virtualization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization

Operating Systems Ubuntu Linux: www.ubuntu.com

Open Solaris: www.opensolaris.com

Redhat Linux: www.redhat.com

Linux: www.linux.org

Lists: Free and open source operating systems http://www.thefreecountry.com/operating-systems/index.shtml

Backup & Deduplication Exagrid: www.exagrid.com

EMC: www.emc.com

Symantec: www.symantec.com

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Readings

FierceHealthIT: surveyresults_Virtualization_in_Hospitals.pdf

Virtualized Datacenter – Real-World IT Optimization (VMintel_pbk09.pdf) www.vmware.com/go/intel

AMD: Putting Server Virtualization to Work www.amd.com

HP Whitepapers & Case Studies www.hp.com

Microsoft Virtualization Product Portfolio – virtualization white papers: https://partner.microsoft.com/global/productssolutions/40075647#white

ITBusinessEdge: The Benefits of Using Virtualized Testing with SOA http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/features/interviews/blog/the-benefits-of-using-virtualized-testing-with-soa/?cs=22617

Application Development Trends: Software Testing Gets Virtualized http://adtmag.com/articles/2007/07/11/software-testing-gets--virtualized.aspx

Technometria: Using Virtualization in Software Testing (Jan 2005 Dr. Dobbs Journal) http://www.windley.com/archives/2004/12/using_virtualiz.shtml

Dr. Dobb’s Journal: Q&A: Software Testing in a Virtualized World | November 28, 2009 http://www.ddj.com/hpc-high-performance-computing/221900785