Virtualization

Virtualization is an abstraction layer that decouples the physical hardware from the operating system to deliver greater IT resource utilization and flexibility

Virtualization allows multiple virtual machines, with heterogeneous operating systems to run in isolation, side-by-side on the same physical machine. Each virtual machine has its own set of virtual hardware (e.g., RAM, CPU, NIC, etc.) upon which an operating system and applications are loaded. The operating system sees a consistent, normalized set of hardware regardless of the actual physical hardware components.

With the advent of increasingly faster and more powerful computing hardware, many tasks previously requiring separate hardware to support the workload can now be consolidated onto a single machine. For various reasons including redundancy, security and compartmentalization of failure points, it is still desirable to have these services operated by a separate "virtual machine". By implementing virtualization you increase the ROI for new hardware and reduce upgrade costs. A by-product of this is the ease of restoration to a known stable point in the system or software configuration. This is invaluable for development, QA and even live production environments for dramatically reducing the time required to reconfigure, rebuild or restore systems at any point in their lifecycle.

Some good articles on the subject:

• Virtualization Enters '2.0' Era
• Virtualization Demand Grows

To discover how to you can benefit from the use of Virtualization techniques, contact us for a free consultation.