Virtualization
Definition
Virtualization is a software solution that isolates operating systems
and their applications from platform hardware resources and from each
other.
Components
- Hypervisor
Manages OS requests and activities, shifting control of the hardware to each OS as required. Depending on the provider, this can sit on top of a host OS or directly on the hardware - Virtual Machine
Each instance of an OS on a system - Physical Server
This is the actual hardware that is running the Hypervisor and Virtual Machines. Some management tools allow you to manage Virtual Machines over multiple machines. Some new hardware technologies also improve the performance of virtualization
Uses
- Isolate Software
Virtual Machines are isolated on partitions, preventing faults, attacks, and OS reboots from affecting other machines - Failover
Virtual Machines can be duplicated to provide failover should once instance fail - Test and development for server applications
You can create test and development systems much more quickly using virtualization, than setting up a completely new physical server - Server consolidation
Reduce the number of servers in an environment by consolidating under-utilized physical servers into virtual servers running on less hardware - Application migration
Move an existing application to new hardware by running it in its native OS, but on a virtual server
Leading Providers
- VMware
- Xen
- Virtual Iron
- Microsoft Virtual Server
Technology Section
High Performance Computing (HPC)
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