Proposal for improvement in the transfer and execution of multiple instances of a virtual image

TL;DR

This paper analyzes and proposes improvements to reduce the size of virtual images, aiming to enhance the efficiency of distributing large virtual images for scientific applications on distributed systems.

Contribution

It presents an analysis and a novel proposal to reduce virtual image sizes, improving distribution efficiency in distributed virtualization environments.

Findings

Reduced virtual image size leads to faster distribution times.

Analysis of operating system requirements informs optimization strategies.

Proposed improvements can facilitate large-scale scientific computations.

Abstract

Virtualization technology allows currently any application run any application complex and expensive computational (the scientific applications are a good example) on heterogeneous distributed systems, which make regular use of Grid and Cloud technologies, enabling significant savings in computing time. This model is particularly interesting for the mass execution of scientific simulations and calculations, allowing parallel execution of applications using the same execution environment (unchanged) used by the scientist as usual. However, the use and distribution of large virtual images can be a problem (up to tens of GBytes), which is aggravated when attempting a mass mailing on a large number of distributed computers. This work has as main objective to present an analysis of how implementation and a proposal for the improvement (reduction in size) of the virtual images pretending reduce distribution time in distributed systems. This analysis is done very specific requirements that need an operating system (guest OS) on some aspects of its execution.