SEMESTER 1 2012 - WEEK 15



Final Progress Report

By follow the guidelines provide,i manage to complete my progress report.My progress report i shown below :
To           : Mr. Muhammad Ghazali B. Twahir @Hj Tahir
From     : Ahmad Ridhwan Bin Razali         (51262210246)
Date      : April 20, 2012
Subject: Progress Report (7th March 2012 – 20th April 2012)
Title: Server Virtualization for Small Medium Enterprise (SME)

 Introduction

The purpose of this project is to create a new and manageability server virtualization that can be used by new established company or SME Company. This project uses Proxmox VE to develop virtualization of the physical servers. This progress report discuss about what have been done from 7th March 2012 until 20th April 2012.

Work completed from 7th March 2012 – 20th April 2012

 During this period, nothing much has been done because the main focus for this semester more in documentations and pre-presentation of final year project 1 (FYP 1) that has been held on 12th April 2012.Besides that, the development of Proxmox VE still be studied and hardware for the suitable and compatible server has been bought one by one. For now, many researches still in progress to learn and how to apply the virtual template that can be use to replace the exact physical server.

Work to be completed by 7 September 2012

After design and build a compatible physical server that include RAM, Motherboard, DVD writer, Processor, Hard disk, casing and also a monitor,Promox VE have to be install. Before installing the Proxmox software, important server that use for SME must first be determine, Email Server, Web Hosting Server, Web Server, Account Server and Human Resources Server are the most important server need by the SME Company. Next step is to find suitable templates that can react as server in virtual way to replace the functionality of physical server. The project will finish in estimated time of early September 2012.

Problem Encountered

During researching of implementing all templates in the Proxmox VE software, problem occur because there are no references because there are not much research have been done before this about Proxmox VE.This is because this type of virtualization method is new and not so familiar with other programmer besides this software is Linux based operation system where it can be develop by other people without knowing it is compatible or not. There is more research about Windows based operation virtualization like Virtual Box or Microsoft Virtual.

Conclusion

This project is still under progress and will be finished at the time given. For now, nothing more can be done besides doing more research on the method to implement virtual templates in the Proxmox software besides additional function like performance and limitations of this server virtualization.

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1          Introduction of chapter

This chapter discuss about the background of the project, problem statement which lead to project idea, objective of this project and limitation of this project.

1.2          Project background

The objective of virtualization is to enable sharing, optimized utilization, scalability and management of a server's resources without having to know its inherent complexities. Server virtualization eases the disaster recovery process as well as improving upon server availability, scalability and manageability by centralizing all server administration activities. However, it is unrealistic to expect the virtualization can manage to do all the application without any disturbance or interrupted.
The reliability of server virtualization cannot be guaranteed absolutely as the technology nowadays evolve everyday and disturbance can cause some disastrous. Sensitive sectors might think judiciously if the server virtualization is used to create virtual private servers shared with unrelated or unknown users.
Server virtualization reliability estimation has found to be one of the best methods of maximizing physical resources to maximize the investment in hardware besides achieving higher server density. There are several approaches to server virtualization; virtual machine model, paravirtual machine model and virtualization at the operating system (OS) layer. Different approach have different application need to be run, there are several application or software that can be used ; VMware , Microsoft Virtual Server , Proxmox VE , UML , Virtual Box , Solaris Zones and many other application.

1.3          Project Statement

This project will be using virtual software that will make actual server became virtual by using Proxmox VE software besides using virtual appliances that act as virtual server that is important for SME Company. By using both software, it will demonstrate how the actual server transform into virtual server and can be implement into one host server and can each of virtual server can be manage by using just one host server. There are huge amount of money have been used by established and big company in order to manage their IT department by managing each of server that have been used. So one of the solutions is virtualization method where one host server can control many guest servers. Applying Proxmox software to virtual all physical server seems to be appropriate way because virtual server can be easily be manage by Proxmox VE software.
 
1.4          Objective

The main objective of this project is to design, build and test a server virtualization to be used in small medium enterprise (SME). This server virtualization is designed to run multiple server application use in SME into one physical server with least user intervention or regular management. This server also has user friendly and interactive server configuration panel using web based interface.

1.1          To build compatible host server.
2.1          To develop virtual server using Proxmox VE for SME.
3.1          To test functionality each of the virtual server.
1.5          Scope of Project /Limitation

Although many research have been done to make this project success but like others project, it still has some problem. There are some limitations which can be improved in the future like the scale of this project. Server Virtualization for SME Company will not be test or implement in the SME Company because there are many protocol must be complete before some new project can be implement into some company system. Besides that, with the budget of this project it is impossible for SME Company will accept the purpose of implementing new server system in their system. Performance of this virtual server can be one of limitations of this project because function of server for virtual and actual maybe function in same way but how many guest can be access to virtual server compared to actual server.

1.6          Summary of Chapter

Basically, this project focused on virtualization of an actual server. This project also will be using Proxmox VE software and templates of virtual appliances to replace an actual server. With this project, some problem facing by SME Company like budget and space to place the actual server can be reduce.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1          History

2.1.1      Previous work

There are number of method and approaches that have been used or proposed to reduce the electricity wastage and decrease the budget to manage the server efficiently. One of the solution propose is virtualization and there are many type of virtualization have been develop. Anand Mitra have been developing and researching about virtualization and produce very good virtualization software known as VxFS and CFS.It is an online upgrade for VERITAS File system and design fast path with improved performance of the file system. Besides software development, he also designs the integration of Power6 or powerful CPU feature of storage keys for the VERITAS storage stack. 
 
2.1.2      Present work

In contrast to the existing server virtualization, it does not feature specifically for SME Company purpose and cannot be used by for different operation system (OS).With this project, the main focus in developing this project is for SME Company used beside using new approach of virtualization system, Proxmox VE that can be installed either Microsoft or Linux based operation system.

2.2          Review of History

In 1964, IBM had developed a Virtual Machine Monitor (CP) to run their various OSes on their mainframes. Hardware was too expensive to leave underutilized. They had addressed many of the performance challenges inherent in virtualization by designing hardware amenable to virtualization. However with the advent of cheap computing resources and proliferation of commodity hardware, virtualization was no longer popular and was viewed as an artifact of an era where computing resources were scarce. This was reflected in design of x86 architectures which no longer provided enough support to implement virtualization efficiently.
With the cost of hardware going down and complexities of software increasing, a large number of administrators started putting one application per server. This provides them isolation, where one application does not interfere with other application. However, over some time it started resulting into a problem called server sprawl. There are too many underutilized servers in data centers. Most windows servers have average utilization between 5% and 15%. This utilization rate will further go down with dual core and quad core processors becoming very common. In addition to the cost of the hardware, there are also power and cooling requirements for all these servers. The earlier problem of utilization of hardware resources has started surfacing again.
Ironically the very reason which resulted in the demise of virtualization in the mainstream was the cause of its resurrection. The features which made the OSes attractive, also made them more fragile. And this renewed interest in virtualization resulted into VMW are providing a server virtualization solution for x86 machines in 1999. Server consolidation has increased the server utilization to the 60% to 80% level. This has resulted in 5 to 15 times reduction in the servers.
Virtual machines have introduced a whole new paradigm of looking at operating systems. Traditionally they were coupled with physical machines, and they needed to know all the peculiarities of hardware. Once hardware becomes obsolete, your operating system becomes obsolete too. But virtual machines have changed that notion. They have decoupled the operating systems from hardware by introducing a virtualization layer called virtual machine monitor (VMM).

2.3          Summary

As a result, this project concept has never been made specifically for one purpose before this. Although there are project that involves virtualization server, but this project is the first project that focusing on SME Company needed and can be implement to various type of operation system (OS) based.


CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

3.1          Introduction

This chapter discuss about the block diagram of the project with focusing on software and hardware that used in this project. Basically, this project contain of both software and hardware.

3.2          Block Diagram

Figure 1 Block Diagram

Virtual machine

A virtual machine is a type of computer application used to create a virtual environment, which is referred to as virtualization. Virtualization allows the user to see the infrastructure of a network through a process of aggregation. Virtualization may also be used to run multiple operating systems at the same time. Through the help of a virtual machine, the user can operate software located on the computer platform.

Client

Central processing unit (CPU), random access memory (RAM), local area network (LAN) and disk. In other words, hardware is workstation or desktop.

3.3          Hardware Development

The main hardware used in this project is just the CPU as the host server that will manage the entire virtual server implement in the host server.

3.4          Software Development

This project is mainly about software application because it is virtualization method for server. The software use is Proxmox VE which is free software develop by Linux based operation system. It will function as virtual server that will be installed in the host server.

3.5          Summary

This project will use hardware to develop the host server and software to design the virtual server. The block diagram shown above gives more accurate information on how this project will be done and the explanations given shows the function of all component and hardware use in this project.


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