Zones and Resource Management

Zones are Edera’s abstraction for resource allocation and workload placement. Think of them as resource pools with specific characteristics.

What Are Zones?

A Zone is a logical grouping of resources on a node with:

• Dedicated CPU cores
• Memory allocation
• Network bandwidth
• Storage quotas
• Optional GPU assignment

Why Zones Matter

Zones enable:

• Performance isolation: Noisy neighbors can’t steal your CPU
• QoS guarantees: Critical workloads get dedicated resources
• GPU sharing: Multiple workloads sharing GPUs safely
• Multi-tenancy: Customer A and Customer B in separate zones

Resource Allocation

CPU Management

CPU Pinning:

• Exclusive: Dedicated cores, no sharing
• Shared: Cores shared among VMs in zone
• Best-effort: Use whatever’s available

NUMA Awareness:

• Allocate memory and CPUs from same NUMA node
• Reduces latency, improves performance

Memory Management

Memory Modes:

• Reserved: Pre-allocated, guaranteed
• Limit: Maximum allowed
• Ballooning: Dynamic adjustment

GPU Virtualization

Edera supports GPU isolation:

Physical GPU
    ↓
SR-IOV / vGPU
    ↓
Per-MicroVM Assignment
    ↓
Isolated GPU Access

Benefits:

• Each microVM gets dedicated GPU slice
• Memory isolated between VMs
• No data leakage between tenants

Module 3 Summary

Key Takeaways:

1. Architecture: Layered design from Kubernetes to Xen
2. Protect: Xen control plane for VM lifecycle
3. Styrolite: CRI runtime bridging K8s and Xen
4. OpenPaX: Kernel hardening for defense in depth
5. am-i-isolated: Verification tool
6. Zones: Resource pools for QoS and isolation

Congratulations! You’ve completed the architecture and concepts section of Edera 101.

You now understand:

• Why traditional containers are insecure
• How Edera’s Xen-based architecture provides hardware-enforced isolation
• The components that make up the Edera stack

Next Steps:

• Review the full Edera documentation for installation guides
• Explore hands-on deployment in your environment
• Contact support@edera.dev with questions

Additional training modules covering hands-on installation and troubleshooting coming soon!