Homogeneous Batch Memory Deduplication Using Clustering of Virtual Machines

Abstract

Virtualization is the backbone of cloud computing, which is a developing and widely used paradigm. By finding and merging identical memory pages, memory deduplication improves memory efficiency in virtualized systems. Kernel Same Page Merging (KSM) is a Linux service for memory pages sharing in virtualized environments. Memory deduplication is vulnerable to a memory disclosure attack, which uses covert channel establishment to reveal the contents of other colocated virtual machines. To avoid a memory disclosure attack, sharing of identical pages within a single user’s virtual machine is permitted, but sharing of contents between different users is forbidden. In our proposed approach, virtual machines with similar operating systems of active domains in a node are recognised and organised into a homogenous batch, with memory deduplication performed inside that batch, to improve the memory pages sharing efficiency. When compared to memory deduplication applied to the entire host, implementation details demonstrate a significant increase in the number of pages shared when memory deduplication applied batch-wise and CPU (Central processing unit) consumption also increased.