what is Paravirtualization ?

[rajeshkongu]

Hi All,

can any one explain what is Paravirtualization. with an example and which suitation we have to use this Paravirtualization.

Regards,

Karthick V

[nava_thulasi39 · Accepted solution]

Hi Karthick,

Hope, this link provides some basic idea about Paravirtualization.. http://www.virtuallifestyle.nl/2008/10/paravirtualization-with-esx/

[katepalli]

You can also check into the below link for more info. on this topic..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paravirtualization

[sakibpavel]

Have a look...

http://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/tip/Paravirtualization-explained

Sakibpavel

[AndreTheGiant]

First read the previous link.

The idea of Paravirtualization is release the requirement that the guest OS must be a un-modified OS (same as if is running on physical system).

If the guest OS know the hypervisors it can run specific function valid in the specific virtual environment.

There are at least two example in Paravirtualization:

• one in the device drivers... drivers specific for the virtual environment (like vmxnet or pvscsi) to improve the performance
• one related to the un-safe CPU instruction... little complicated to explain in few raw (search for for info about Xen hypervisor on Linux)

[UmeshAhuja]

Hi,

There are three type of Virtualization emulation, native virtualization, and paravirtualization

Emulation is where software is used to simulate hardware for a guest operating system to run in. This has been used in the past but is difficult to do and offers low performance.

Native virtualization (or full virtualization) is where a type-2 hypervisor is used to partially allow access to the hardware and partially to simulate hardware in order to allow you to load a full operating system. This is used by emulation packages like VMware Server, Workstation, Virtual PC, and Virtual Server.

Paravirtualization is where the guest operating systems run on the hypervisor, allowing for higher performance and efficiency. For more technical information and videos on this topic, visit VMware’s Technology Preview for Transparent Virtualization. Examples of paravirtualization are Microsoft Hyper-V and VMware ESX Server.