Perfomance Analysis of the Xen Hypervisor For Virtualizing Network Devices

Abstract

Acknowledging the great potential of virtualization techniques in communication networks, the aim of this project is to understand and analyze the possibilities of virtualization in the network scope. For that reason we set the objectives of the project as follows:• To analyze the different virtualization techniques currently available and to understand their impact in the virtualization process • To identify virtualization tools supporting the above virtualization techniques • To devise a set of scenarios where virtualization can play a role and implement a subset of them for evaluation purposes • To devise a set of performance indexes to evaluate the behaviour of virtual network scenarios. • To select a virtualization tool and run a set of experiments with the virtual network infrastructure • To propose a monitoring mechanism of the usage of resources of each virtual machine • To extrapolate the evaluation results of the proposed tests to more complex scenarios