Abstract
System-level virtualization has been a research topic since the 70's but
regained popularity during the past few years because of the availability of
efficient solution such as Xen and the implementation of hardware support in
commodity processors (e.g. Intel-VT, AMD-V).
However, a majority of system-level virtualization projects is guided by the
server consolidation market. As a result, current virtualization solutions
appear to not be suitable for high performance computing (HPC) which is
typically based on large-scale systems.
On another hand there is significant interest in exploiting virtual machines
(VMs) within HPC for a number of other reasons. By virtualizing the machine, one
is able to run a variety of operating systems and environments as needed by the
applications. Virtualization allows users to isolate workloads, improving
security and reliability. It is also possible to support non-native environments
and/or legacy operating environments through virtualization. In addition, it is
possible to balance work loads, use migration techniques to relocate
applications from failing machines, and isolate fault systems for repair.
This document presents the challenges for the implementation of a system-level
virtualization solution for HPC. It also presents a brief survey of the
different approaches and techniques to address these challenges.
