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Cisco CSR 1000V Series Cloud Services Router Software Configuration Guide
OL-27477-07
Chapter1 Cisco CSR 1000V Series Cloud Services Router Overview
Virtual Machine Requirements
•Virtual Machines
•Hypervisor Support
•Server Requirements
Virtual Machines
A virtual machine (VM) is a software implementation of a computing environment in which an operating
system (OS) or program can be installed and run. The VM typically emulates a physical computing
environment, but requests for CPU, memory, hard disk, network and other hardware resources are
managed by a virtualization layer which translates these requests to the underlying physical hardware.
You can deploy an Open Virtualization Archive (OVA) file. The OVA file package simplifies the process
of deploying a VM by providing a complete definition of the parameters and resource allocation
requirements for the new VM.
An OVA file consists of a descriptor (.ovf) file, a storage (.vmdk) file and a manifest (.mf) file.
•ovf file—Descriptor file which is an xml file with extension .ovf which consists of all the metadata
about the package. It encodes all the product details, virtual hardware requirements and licensing.
•vmdk file—File format that encodes a single virtual disk from a VM.
•mf file—Optional file that stores the SHA key generated during packaging.
You can also install the Cisco CSR 1000V using an .iso file and manually create the VM in the
hypervisor.
For more information, see the “Cisco CSR 1000V Series Cloud Services Router Overview” section on
page 1-1.
Hypervisor Support
A hypervisor enables multiple operating systems to share a single hardware host machine. While each
operating system appears to have the dedicated use of the host's processor, memory, and other resources;
the hypervisor controls and allocates only needed resources to each operating system and ensures that
the operating systems (VMs) do not disrupt each other.
The Cisco CSR 1000V is supported for installation on selected hypervisors. The following table lists the
supported hypervisor versions for your software release.
Note Beginning with Cisco IOS XE Release 3.11S, the Cisco CSR 1000V can also be deployed on Cisco
Amazon Web Services. For more information, see the Cisco CSR 1000V Series Cloud Services Router
Deployment Guide for Amazon Web Services.