Virtualization and resource allocation in cloud-based operating

system: A systematic review

1.0 Introduction

1.1Overview
Cloud computing has changed the way businesses function, providing them with scalability and
flexibility to meet their technological requirements. One of these cornerstones is Cloud OS
virtualization, which brings about many frameworks and tools available to enable hardware
abstracting in virtual resources. Cloud computing is broken up into various layers, ranging from
those as a service that provide little operational control and management (for example,
Infrastructure as a Service: IaaS) to those with more flexibility but more manual or automatic
and opaque management and control (Platform as a Service: PaaS) or even simper may just be
delivered as a software service introduced onto the system.

Cloud OS virtualization creates a virtual abstraction layer between the operating systems that run
on top of it and the underlying hardware. This leads to more efficient resource utilization,
improved disaster recovery solutions and a whole array of additional benefits. Cloud operating
systems are designed specifically to provide resources in virtualized environments, so they can
offer improved performance and/or reduced costs over traditional operating systems that run
directly on physical hardware.

For cloud computing systems, the allocation of resources is important for maintaining overall
performance and cost-effectiveness in virtualized environments. It uses advanced algorithms and
frameworks for allocating resources on demand without over-provisioning / underutilizing
hardware components. Central to this capability is virtualization, which allows several OpenShift
platform nodes and host operating systems (along with many application workloads) to run
simultaneously on a single physical computer while providing more extensive resource sharing
and isolation among multiple software policies that are influence by individual environments.

That makes cloud OS virtualization one of the most-researched areas in computer science, and a
core technology that allowed cloud computing to scale up with the flexibility it required from
day zero. The review of Cloud OS virtualization has the following objectives, aimed at
understanding the underlying technologies, identifying best practices in implementation and
future trends too. Virtualization and resource allocation of cloud ensure tremendous changes in
how we can manage scalability, flexibility computing environments which allows us deploy
rapidly changing demands of the business faster.

1.1.2 Virtualization Foundations

The hypervisor is one of the key technologies behind cloud OS virtualization. A hypervisor, or
virtual machine monitor (VMM), is a computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and
runs virtual machines by abstracting the physical hardware resources. Types of hypervisors there
are two primary types of hypervisors: Type 1 (bare-metal) hypervisors, like VMware vSphere
and Microsoft Hyper-V, run directly on host hardware to control the hardware and manage guest
operating systems. Type 2 (hosted) hypervisors, such as Oracle VM VirtualBox, runs on a
conventional operating system just as other computer programs do. The decision about what
kinds to choose depends on your special performance, management and deployment needs.

Containerization and microservices are the two technologies, they have to work with
Virtualization Technology to ensure that modularity, efficiency is delivered. Containers bundle
applications and their dependencies in isolated lightweight run-time environments, making apps
more consistent across different development and deployment stages: dev, testing, production.
Containers share the host OS kernel, making them lighter and more efficient than virtual
machines. Docker and Kubernetes are key leading technologies in this area, providing container
lifecycle management and orchestration.

When an application is running, networking and storage solutions are necessary to allow cloud
OS virtualization to properly manage communications and process data within the virtualized
environment. Abstract: Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function
Virtualization (NFV) are the two key concepts that play a critical role in dynamic and flexible
network management. There is software-defined storage (SDS) as well as cloud storage services,
such as Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage that present scalable and reliable storage
implementations to encapsulate virtual machines.

1.2 Research Gap

However, while there are great benefits from using cloud OS virtualization, it is not without its
risks and challenges. Despite multiple layers of abstraction added by virtualization, security
vulnerabilities continue to be a concern as they could be new attack surfaces. It is vital to keep
the updates and patch hypervisors along with containers.

The overhead of virtualization can also impact performance. While virtualization permits more
powerful resource application, an added layer of abstraction can mean application functioning is
less optimal than running app natively on physical hardware. These overheads need to be kept in
check with careful performance monitoring and optimization.

Maintenance of the hypervisor and management of the virtualized environments adds complexity
as well. Given the complexity, it is difficult to manage multiple virtual machines, containers and
the underlying infrastructure which demands specialized expertise in mind. IT team members in
organizations with virtual environments must be trained and developed to work efficiently with
them.

1.3 Research Significance

While choosing to go with cloud OS virtualization, there is a handful of advantages that one can
experience with the primary ones being, cost-efficient and resource optimization. Instead of
using hardware, it enables many virtual environments to run on a single piece of physical
infrastructure. And virtualization makes it easier to allocate a wide range of resources on-demand
based on the requirements of individual workloads, thereby improving utilization.
Cloud are also one of the great benefits of cloud OS virtualization as that means you can scale up
your resources anytime. With virtualization, organizations can dynamically scale their
environments up or down as required — spinning up new VMs or containers in minutes without
the use of physical servers. Since users have requested for additional flexibility, this release is a
big win for companies with fluctuating workloads (ex: when an e-commerce company has a
major shopping season) or those who need to run batch-processing jobs.

This makes use of a lot more security features within the computer and virtualization helps in
this regard. S4 isolation means that if one virtual machine or container is compromised, the
damage does not spread to others. Hypervisors: Hypervisors and containerization solutions offer
natively inherent security functionalities such as encryption, secure boot, and others for securing
the virtual infrastructure on multiple layers

1.5 Research Objectives

To get the most out of cloud OS virtualization, organizations must decide on several best
practices. An agile security audit is an integral part of testing or identifying and correcting threats
in the virtualized environment. These audits ought to include Regular hypervisor assessments to
guarantee that the Hosts (hypervisors) are secure. Details for every virtual machine. Static and /
or dynamic analysis of the container. Monitoring the supporting physical network as well as the
storage infrastructure.

Resource allocation: Efficient resource allocation is another important best practice. Crop use
Organizations need to monitor and manage the consumption of resources to ensure that virtual
machines and containers receive the resources they require without being over-allocated. This
helps to reduce costs and also avoid performance bottlenecks.

Keeping your infrastructure up to date with regular updates and patch management is also
important for security, performance and reliability of any virtualized environment. Updating
hypervisors, containers as well as the underlying operating systems with latest security patches
and performance improvements can help minimize threats while ensuring optimum performance.

Problem Statement:

As cloud OS virtualization is becoming an unavoidable element in the current computing

landscape, organizations are presented with new opportunities and challenges. They include
hypervisors, containerization and improved networking that have brought about cost-savings,
scalability, flexibility and security. There are however several challenges and complexities that
need to be looked upon. Security enhancements, performance compromises and the difficulty of
operating virtualized environments are still some of the aspects that need to be improved on. In
addition, having many ways to implement virtualization like VMware, Hyper-V, KVM, Xen,
etc., organizations face a plethora of solutions that should be applicable to each of them.
There is also the issue of improving security practices, for instance, conducting periodic security
checks and deploying fixes as soon as the system behaves irregularly. Also, it is important to
state that as AI, ML, edge computing and serverless grow Linda inevitably grows too. The issue
is in controlling all or these technologies and other risks associated with them in order to take
full advantage of cloud OS virtualization or not, as the abstract poses.

1.4 Research Questions

 R.Q:1 How does virtualization impact resource allocation and management in

cloud-based operating systems?
 R.Q:2 what are the most effective resource allocation strategies for optimizing
performance in virtualized cloud environments?
 R.Q:3 what are the key challenges and risks associated with resource allocation in
virtualized cloud environments?
 R.Q:4 how do different cloud OS virtualization platforms compare in terms of their
resource allocation capabilities?
 R.Q:5 how can emerging trends, such as edge computing and server less
architectures, influence resource allocation strategies in cloud OS virtualization?

Answer to Research Question 1:

How does virtualization impact resource allocation and management in cloud-based

operating systems?

Answer: In cloud computing operating systems, virtualization provides better

flexibility in the allocation and management of resources because it conceals the
underlying physical resources and allocates them appropriately. Using hypervisors,
resources CPU, Memory, Storage, etc.) may be allocated to different virtual
machines on demand, resulting in more effective use of resources and better
containment of resources. This has its associated merits such as enhanced
scalability, improvement in workload management as well as management of faults.
On the flip side, virtualization can cause added cost in terms of performance
outputs and in managing the existing structure.
 Table Format Answer for R.Q1:

Ref Insight Major Focus Methodology Common Results

Techniques
Used
1 Virtualization Evaluates how Comprehensiv Virtualization Improved resource
addresses the the virtualized e survey of the technologies The resource
cloud operating various like flexibility,
flexibility of
system techniques of Hypervisor scalability and
allocation of manages its virtualization and resources workload
resources resources. for effective allocated to management
resource Virtual have definitely
management. Machines. improved,
however may
have added
performance
overhead.

Answer to Research Question 2:

What are the most effective resource allocation strategies for optimizing performance in
virtualized cloud environments?

Answer The resource allocation centered approaches that can enhance efficiency
performance in a virtualized cloud environment include, among other activities,
dynamic resource allocation which entails load balancing and predictive distribution
of the resources. To elaborate further, dynamic allocation refers to the increase or
decrease in the availability of resources based on current need while load balancing
ensures that virtual machines do not have too much work or too little intentionally.
Predictive algorithms enable the operation of resources in advance of their actual
usage. This goal is achieved in their synthesis by considering performance
improvement of the system and reducing overall resourced idleness which
enhances effective operation.

Table Format Answer for R.Q2:

Re Insight Major Focus Methodology Common Results

f Techniques
Used
2 Performance Covers Strategy of Software Enhanced
is enhanced performance resources load performance
through optimization allocation – balancing, through
dynamic strategies in a comparative dynamic reduction of
allocation virtualized analysis. resource resource waste
and load environment. allocation, and
balancing. and improvement
predictive of VM
 algorithms. utilization.

Answer to Research Question 3:

What are the key challenges and risks associated with resource allocation in virtualized
cloud environments?

Answer: While navigating resource allocation in a virtual cloud, problems such as

resource sharing, putting more resources than necessary and poor virtual machine
efficiency lead to contention. This can be tackled in several ways, through external
attacks where the resources are shared through encroachments, internal
aggressions by disgruntled clients dubbed ‘bad neighbors as a result of
mismanagement of resources, and even the management threats when the system
just breaks down due to ineffective resource control. The same applies in the case
of optimizing performance, in all its drawbacks, in the presence of VMs and with
loyalty assured.

Table Format Answer for R.Q3:

Re Insight Major Focus Methodology Common Results

f Techniques
Used
3 The key Depicts the Issues of Assessment It highlights
priorities challenges performance of safety, resource
include and and risk resources spending and
resource opportunitie managemen managemen overprovisioning
limitations s abound in t in cloud t and risks along with
and the terms of the OS. contention performance
safeguardin resource strategies. degradation of
g of the provision. virtual machines
existing leading to poor
systems. service delivery.

Answer to Research Question 4:

How do different cloud OS virtualization platforms compare in terms of their resource

allocation capabilities?

Answer: Cloud computing has many distributed systems administration virtualization

operating platforms such as VMware and KVM, Xen, and others, which differ with
each other in resource allocation effectiveness. The reason for this is that different
architectures determine the effective hypervisor, as well as the degree of
effectiveness in dynamic resource management. This is what makes VMware a
household name with its competitive edge features and more importantly its
resource distribution virality during load balancing and adaptive capabilities. KVM is
not heavyweight neither in emphasizing on all things open source, but performance
is not compromised while Xen can be adjusted as per user requirements. Reviewing
the literature, it is frequently indicated that operating VMware is, for example, the
most user-friendly, while KVM and Xen offer a greater variety of resource allocation
strategies.

Table Format Answer for R.Q4:

Re Insight Major Focus Methodology Common Results

f Techniques
Used
4 Different Resource Analysis of Resource Management
levels of allocation VMware, allocation and scaling are
efficiency efficiency of KVM, and Xen techniques the strong suite
in resource various platforms in a in the of VM ware
allocation virtualization comparative individual while
around platforms is manner. hypervisor, performance is
different compared. resource that of KVM and
platforms. allocation Xen that of
efficiency. customization.

Answer to Research Question 5:

How can emerging trends, such as edge computing and serverless architectures, influence
resource allocation strategies in cloud OS virtualization?

Answer: Traditional methods of resource allocation are being highly influenced by

trends such as edge computing, serverless architecture, among others making them
interested. They are bringing resource management closer to the end user (in the
case of edge computing) and taking away the infrastructure (In the case of
serverless). Within edge computing, decentralized low-latency resource
management is required normally using micro data centers or at the very least on-
device computing resources. Serverless architecture, on the other hand, resources
are only provisioned when a function is invocated thus event driven resource
management is very effective with virtually zero resource idle. Both speak the same
language with regards to flexibility, scalability, and real time resource management
which are quite impossible to achieve with the current VM based approach.

Table Format Answer for R.Q5:

Ref Insight Major Focus Methodology Common Results

Techniques
Used
5 With the rise Looks into States the rise Strategies Real time,
of edge and how of new concerning centralized,
serverless resources tendencies edge event driven
computing, are concerning computing resource
resource allocated cloud OS resources allocation
strategies and vanishing management, techniques
are bound to managed in systems from serverless are typical to
change. edge a qualitative computing. edge and
computing point of view. serverless
and designs.
serverless
paradigm.