By: Dhanshree Lakkad
What is Virtualization?
Virtualization is the process of creating a software-based, or virtual, representation of something, such as virtual applications, servers, storage and networks. It is the single most effective way to reduce IT expenses while boosting efficiency and agility for all size businesses.
Virtualization, then, makes “real” that which is not, applying the flexibility and convenience of software-based capabilities and services as a transparent substitute for the same realized in hardware.
Due to the limitations of x86 servers, many IT organizations must deploy multiple servers, each operating at a fraction of their capacity, to keep pace with today’s high storage and processing demands. The result: huge inefficiencies and excessive operating costs.
Enter virtualization. Virtualization relies on software to simulate hardware functionality and create a virtual computer system. This enables IT organizations to run more than one virtual system – and multiple operating systems and applications – on a single server. The resulting benefits include economies of scale and greater efficiency.
v How Virtualization Works:
With virtualization, an application, a guest OS or data storage is separated from the underlying software or hardware. A thin software layer, known as a hypervisor, reproduces the functions and actions of the underlying hardware for the abstracted hardware or software – creating multiple virtual machines on a single physical system. While the performance of these virtual machines may not be at par with the OS running on true hardware, it’s still more than enough for most systems and applications. This is because most systems and applications do not utilise or need the full use of the underlying hardware. When this dependency is removed, the virtual machines (created by virtualization) offers its customers greater isolation, flexibility and control. Next, let’s briefly look at the types of virtualization.
vTypes of Virtualization
All types of virtualization have at least one thing in common: The abstraction of something physical into discrete parts via software.
In fact, server virtualization has been around for so long that most IT administrators don't need a primer -- it uses a hypervisor to divide a physical server into VMs, the benefits of which include having less hardware to buy and manage, more efficient resource usage and improved resilience.
Network virtualization
Network virtualization takes the available resources on a network and breaks the bandwidth into discrete channels. Admins can secure each channel separately, and they can assign and reassign channels to specific devices in real time. The promise of network virtualization is to improve networks' speed, availability and security, and it's particularly useful for networks that must support unpredictable usage bursts.
For IT admins, network virtualization can lighten the load associated with network management because many tasks -- such as configuration and device discovery -- are automated. Additionally, admins can centrally manage files, add or reassign storage media, and share or reallocate storage space among servers as needed.
Storage virtualization
Storage virtualization uses software to find physical storage space from multiple devices and pool it into what appears to be a single storage device that machines can use. The software receives I/O requests from physical devices and VMs, then sends the requests to the location of the physical storage that's part of the overall storage pool. Admins can manage pooled storage from a central console.
Hyper-converged infrastructure and other modern approaches to virtualizing the data center use storage virtualization in conjunction with other virtualized resources, such as network capacity and compute. The benefits of storage virtualization include simplified management of heterogeneous storage types, reduced hardware costs and increased performance and reliability.
Desktop virtualization
With desktop virtualization, the goal is to isolate a desktop OS from the endpoint that employees use to access it. But there are many different types of desktop virtualization.
It's also important to remember that desktop virtualization and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) aren't the same thing. VDI uses host-based VMs to deliver virtual desktops, but desktop virtualization methods, such as the shared host model, host-based physical machines and client virtualization aren't VDI.
When multiple users connect to a shared desktop, as is the case with Microsoft Remote Desktop Services, it's known as shared hosted desktop virtualization. And if the only thing users must access from this shared desktop is a single application, then it would be called application virtualization.
Application virtualization
With application virtualization, an app runs separately from the device that accesses it. Application virtualization makes it possible for IT admins to install, patch and update only one version of an app rather than performing the same management tasks multiple times.
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