Differentiate full virtualization paravirtualization and hardwareassisted virtualization techniques

The main difference between full virtualization and paravirtualization in Cloud is that full virtualization allows multiple guest operating systems to execute on a host operating system independently while paravirtualization allows multiple guest operating systems to run on host operating systems while communicating with the hypervisor to improve performance.

Virtualization is the process of creating a virtual version of a server, desktop, operating system or a storage device. Moreover, Cloud provides applications with standard versions to the users. When there is a new version, the cloud provider has to provide the latest version to the cloud users. However, this is an expensive task. Virtualization provides an alternative to this issue. Here, a third party maintains the servers and software applications required by the other cloud providers. A hypervisor is a software that creates and manages virtual machines. Thus, after installing the hypervisor, the operating system and applications communicate with the virtualized resource created by the hypervisor. 

Key Areas Covered

1. What is Full Virtualization in Cloud
     – Definition, Functionality
2. What is Paravirtualization in Cloud
     – Definition, Functionality
3. Difference Between Full Virtualization and Paravirtualization in Cloud
  – Comparison of Key Differences

Key Terms

Cloud, Full Virtualization, Guest Operating Systems, Hypervisor, Paravirtualization, Virtualization

A host operating system runs directly on the hardware while a guest operating system runs on the virtual machine. In full virtualization, the guest operating systems do not concern about the presence of a hypervisor. Therefore, each virtual machine and its guest operating system operate as independent computers. In other words, multiple guest operating systems execute on a single host operating system in an isolated manner using direct execution and binary translation.

Moreover, one major drawback of full virtualization is that it affects the performance of the system. Hypervisor depends on the hardware emulator. Thus, the continuous translations between the physical and virtual resources such as memory and processor can impact the performance of the system.

What is Paravirtualization in Cloud

Paravirtualization was initially developed by IBM. In Paravirtualization, the hypervisor is installed on the device. Then, the guest operating systems are installed into the environment. Here, the virtualization method modifies the guest operating system to communicate with the hypervisor. Thus, it reduces the time taken by the operating system to perform operations that are difficult and take a longer time in a virtual environment. Also, it helps to increase the performance of the system. Moreover, the guest operating systems communicate with the hypervisor using API calls.

Difference Between Full Virtualization and Paravirtualization in Cloud

Definition

Full virtualization is a common and cost-effective type of virtualization in which computer service requests are separated from the physical hardware that facilitates them while paravirtualization is an enhancement of virtualization technology in which a guest OS is recompiled prior to installation inside a virtual machine.

Functionality

Thus, the main difference between full virtualization and paravirtualization is that full virtualization allows guest operating systems to execute independently while paravirtualization allows guest operating systems to communicate with the hypervisor.

Accessing hardware

In full virtualization, guest operating system issues hardware calls to access hardware, whereas, in paravirtualization, guest operating system directly communicates with the hypervisor using drivers. Hence, this is also a difference between full virtualization and paravirtualization. 

Performance

Performance is another difference between full virtualization and paravirtualization. Performance is higher in paravirtualization than in full virtualization.

Conclusion

In brief, full and paravirtualization are two types of virtualization methods. The main difference between full virtualization and paravirtualization in cloud is that full virtualization allows multiple guest operating systems to execute on a host operating system independently while paravirtualization allows multiple guest operating systems to run on host operating systems while communicating with the hypervisor to improve performance.

References:

1. “What Is Full Virtualization? – Definition from Techopedia.” Techopedia.com, Available here.
2. “What Is Paravirtualization? – Definition from Techopedia.” Techopedia.com, Available here.

Image Courtesy:

1.” Virtualization – Paravirtualization vs Fullvirtualization” By RicoRico – Own work (CC BY-SA 4.0) via Commons Wikimedia