Abstracts of Magazine FUJITSU 2009-5 (VOL.60, NO.3)

Special Issue: Virtualization

• Evolution of Virtualization Technology and Development in Fujitsu

This paper examines advances in virtualization technologies and Fujitsu's efforts for development in this area. Based on a clear definition of virtualization and an analysis of the benefits of virtualization, various virtualization technologies such as virtual machines and storage virtualization are explained. The long history of evolution of those technologies from the mainframe era and the evolution of applications of virtualization technologies are examined, together with the history of Fujitsu's development of virtualization technologies and products. The importance of integrating virtualization technologies in a data center is pointed out as a future direction, considering the current IT trends such as Cloud Computing and green IT.

• Prospects for Virtual Machine Technology

Through performance improvements and hardware support for virtualization, virtual machine technology is now ready to be widely deployed. Just as for mainframe computers, virtual machines for PC and UNIX servers have been used so far to reduce costs via server consolidation. On top of this, through the acquisition of advanced technology called live migration, which had not existed in mainframe computers, applications for new purposes are also expanding. In addition, a new use of virtual machines is being explored for client PCs as well to ensure their secure environments. This paper describes the usage patterns of virtual machines for servers and clients. It also presents the future directions of virtual machine technology. Finally, Fujitsu's support for virtual machines and contributions to open source virtual machine software are mentioned.

• New Blade Server PRIMERGY BX900 Suitable for Server Virtualization

Recently, the use of virtualization technology has been increasing in the IT industry to realize server consolidation and energy saving. Virtualization includes not only server virtualization but also network virtualization and storage virtualization. A blade server is a new integrated IT system that includes these IT components, and it is the best way to realize the benefits of virtualization. The new blade server PRIMERGY BX900 is based on Fujitsu's new proprietary technologies, such as very high-speed transfer technology and high-speed Ethernet switch technology. With these advanced basic technologies, PRIMERGY BX900 provides customers with the great benefits of server virtualization, network virtualization and I/O virtualization.

• Unified Management Technology for Virtualized Systems

Recent IT trends show a rising interest in virtualization technology because of its ability to reduce IT infrastructure costs and optimize resource use. Virtualization has also been attracting more attention because of its adoption as a basis for green IT and Cloud Computing initiatives. On the other hand, shifting toward virtualization is often easier said than done. In real-life environments, traditional administration approaches often struggle to cope with the overwhelming amounts of resources and complex inter-dependencies that make up a virtualized system. This paper provides an overview of current server and I/O virtualization technologies, and details new kinds of issues that follow the adoption of such technologies. This paper also presents ServerView Resource Coordinator VE, a Fujitsu management product dedicated to the management of virtualized systems.

• Overview of Storage Virtualization

In recent years, it has not been unusual for enterprise IT systems to have utilization rates of about 10％ or less for their disk units. So we can expect that storage virtualization will be effective for cost reduction as well as server virtualization. The term "storage virtualization" has recently been used in contexts such as the one mentioned above. But it originally meant a disconnection of storage's physical topology from a logical view, and mapping the physical resources for a logical view of applications. Storage systems carry out such disconnection and mapping in an invisible manner. This paper explains virtualization in a block access layer and file aggregation layer as an example of how virtualization is adopted in an operational system.

• Technology of Storage Virtualization

Recently, the amount of information (data) has been greatly increasing in Japanese companies while the number of IT administrators (for storage) remains unchanged or is increasing only slightly. Under these circumstances, the number of storage capacities and systems that each administrator has to manage is increasing every year. Consequently, the administrators are having a number of problems in operating and managing storage. As one way of solving these problems, Fujitsu has focused on storage virtualization in storage area networks and developed technologies to enable centralized management by consolidating multiple physical storage systems (disk arrays). This paper shows these technologies including the Out-of-Band method for realizing storage virtualization in the virtualization switch ETERNUS VS900, virtualization objects focused on various storage operations, and data migration functions for non-stop operation.

• Virtualization of ETERNUS Disk-array Subsystem

Recently, virtualization has become an important technology for storage systems. Many kinds of virtualization features are implemented in various layers of disk-array subsystems. This paper explains some virtualization features which have been introduced to ETERNUS disk-array subsystems recently. A thin-provisioning feature is one of them. It is also important to support server virtualization in storage systems. Normal read/write access does not need any additional feature to support server virtualization. But the volume replication feature, which has become commonplace in high-end disk-array subsystems, needs to adapt to server virtualization. Recognition of storage resources from operation systems may change in a server virtualization environment. ETERNUS SF AdvancedCopy Manager, which is a utility program for controlling ETERNUS disk-array's advanced copy feature, adapts that feature to server virtualization.

• Virtualization Technology of Network Servers

The importance of virtualization technology for servers and storage has been increasing, aiming to improve availability, power-saving features and operation and maintenance control, as the integration of servers into data centers progresses. A variety of virtualization technologies have already been realized in network servers. This paper discusses network server virtualization technologies according to the network function layer of an OSI communication model. In addition, server load-balancing with a deep relation to servers is explained as an example of the NETWORK SERVER IPCOM EX series that our company is offering. Finally, this paper discusses the direction in which virtualization technology of network servers is headed. Such servers will be needed along with consolidating of servers in centers.

• Virtualized IT Platform for Cloud Computing Era

There has been a strong trend toward using Cloud Computing in the recent IT industry. One of the driving forces of this trend is the merit of scale which can be attained by having a one-configuration-for-everyone usage model. On the other hand, people have various ideas about application systems, and it is very hard to cover all these ideas with a single configuration. We believe that virtualization technologies can provide a solution to these incompatible demands for merit of scale and variety of ideas. This paper describes the concepts and architecture of an IT platform that we are developing. On the platform, various configurations of application systems are implemented as virtualized systems and are executed and managed with a homogeneous IT resource pool.

• Applying Virtualization Technology to Outsourcing Service

Fujitsu provides the largest scale outsourcing services in Japan, in addition to having a global capability. Fujitsu continually strives to provide services which are based on the company's product development skills and service experience, in order to contribute to the optimization and efficiency improvements of customers' IT systems. Through a case study, this paper describes the requirements that server virtualization technology must meet to satisfy customers' concerns and responsibilities regarding management of such services. A new resource platform approach for the SaaS (Software as a Service) market is then introduced. This approach is based on the service and management experience and technological features we have developed during the study.