Residency-Aware Virtual Machine Communication Optimization: Design Choices and Techniques

Network I/O workloads are dominating in many data centers and cloud computing environments today. One way to improve inter Virtual Machine (VM) communication efficiency is to support co-resident VM communication by using shared memory based approaches and to resort to the traditional TCP/IP for inter-VM communications between VMs that are located on different physical hosts. Although a number of independent efforts are dedicated to improving communication efficiency between co-resident VMs, they differ from one another in terms of how the inter-VM communication optimization is carried out and where in the software stack the shared memory channel is established. In this paper, we provide an in-depth overview of the design choices and techniques for optimizing the performance of the co-resident inter-VM communication, with dual objectives. First, we describe the core design guidelines and key issues for optimizing inter-VM communication by using shared memory based mechanisms. Typical issues include choices of implementation layer in the software stack, seamless agility for VM live migration and VM dynamic deployment support, multilevel transparency. Second, we conduct a comprehensive analysis of representative state-of-the-art research efforts and implementation techniques based on the core design guidelines. We also give an analysis of future requirements in advanced features such as reliability, security and stability. The research reported in this paper not only provides the reference for developing the next generation of inter-VM communication optimization mechanisms, but also offers opportunities for both cloud infrastructure providers and cloud service consumers to improve inter-VM communication efficiency in virtualized platforms.