README

Virtualization has entered a rapid development boom times as a solution of resource sharing and effective utilization. 

The virtualization technology has become one of the most popular research topics. Network I/O virtualization, as one of the core virtualization technologies, has been paid more and more attention. There are some problems in traditional software-based network I/O virtualization technologies such as poor performance, high rate of CPU utilization and large consumption of memory and so on. 

In order to improve the overall performance of virtualized system, many manufacturers such as Intel and AMD, has provided several network I/O solutions with hardware-based. However, various I/O virtualization technologies are faced with problems that integrated management and lacking of adaptation capacity on demand automatically. So, it can't take the full advantage of the flexibility of virtualization technology.

This project implemented a network I/O virtual management system based on mltiple network I/O virtual solutions under Debian sequeeze. The project integrates three I/O Virtualization Technologies, Virtio, VT-d and SR-IOV. It can detect the system hardware configuration information automatically, such as Network Card attributes(single port/double port/four port, whether support VT-d or not, how many virtual ports can be generated, etc.), and than select the best solution for the current system. The project generates a virtual machine's descriptor(in XML file) and use KVM to boot the virtual machine from the descriptor with system image created for virtualization. Besides, the project can demonstrate the statue of virtual/physics network cards generated and distribution immediately on web page built with Ruby On Rails and Flex. 

The project is developed under the debian sequeeze, using Python,Ruby,Flex,Sqlalchemy, supporting three network I/O virtualization technologies, Virtio as default, VT-d and SRIOV.

A System demo can be found here: http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzk2NzYwMTUy.html.