Efficient Front-End Cache for XEN Virtual Block Device

Abstract:

Xen’s VBD (virtual-block-device) driver is proved to be an efficient solution for block device virtualization, which can achieve nearly 90% performance of bare mode. However, long call path, heavy involvement of hypervisor and redundant context-switches are still obstacles preventing current frontend-backend virtual disk driver from reaching a more efficient level. In this paper we proposed a cache-based method to improve the performance of Xen’s VBD driver. By implementing a cache which buffers recent frontend disk requests, guest is given the opportunity to complete read virtual disk independently without any involvement of Dom0 and XEN hypervisor. Result shows that our cache can brings great improvement of performance to Xen’s VBD driver.

• Periodical: Advanced Materials Research (Volumes 605-607)
• Pages: 2514-2517
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.605-607.2514
• Online since: December 2012
• Authors: Xiang Mi*, Wei Ye, Alei Liang
• Keywords: Cache, Disk, I/O Virtualization

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