Introduction to Virtualization

“Virtualization enables the hardware resources of a single computer—processors, memory, storage

and more—to be divided into multiple virtual computers, called virtual machines (VMs).”

What is virtualization?
Virtualization is a process that allows for more efficient utilization of physical computer hardware and is the
foundation of cloud computing.

Virtualization uses software to create an abstraction layer over computer hardware that allows the hardware
elements of a single computer—processors, memory, storage and more—to be divided into multiple virtual
computers, commonly called virtual machines (VMs). Each VM runs its own operating system (OS) and
behaves like an independent computer, even though it is running on just a portion of the actual underlying
computer hardware.

It follows that virtualization enables more efficient utilization of physical computer hardware and allows a
greater return on an organization’s hardware investment.

Today, virtualization is a standard practice in enterprise IT architecture. It is also the technology that drives
cloud computing economics. Virtualization enables cloud providers to serve users with their existing physical
computer hardware; it enables cloud users to purchase only the computing resources they need when they
need it, and to scale those resources cost-effectively as their workloads grow.

How virtualization works

When a hypervisor is used on a physical computer or server, (also known as bare metal server), it allows the
physical computer to separate its operating system and applications from its hardware. Then, it can divide
itself into several independent “virtual machines.”

Each of these new virtual machines can then run their own operating systems and applications
independently while still sharing the original resources from the bare metal server, which the hypervisor
manages. Those resources include memory, RAM, storage, etc.

The hypervisor acts like a traffic cop of sorts, directing and allocating the bare metal’s resources to each of
the various new virtual machines, ensuring they don’t disrupt each other.

There are two primary types of hypervisors.

Type 1 hypervisors run directly on the physical hardware (usually a server), taking the place of the OS.
Typically, you use a separate software product to create and manipulate VMs on the hypervisor. Some
management tools, like VMware’s vSphere, let you select a guest OS to install in the VM.

You can use one VM as a template for others, duplicating it to create new ones. Depending on your needs,
you might create multiple VM templates for different purposes, such as software testing, production
databases, and development environments.

Type 2 hypervisors run as an application within a host OS and usually target single-user desktop or
notebook platforms. With a Type 2 hypervisor, you manually create a VM and then install a guest OS in it.
You can use the hypervisor to allocate physical resources to your VM, manually setting the amount of
processor cores and memory it can use. Depending on the hypervisor’s capabilities, you can also set
options like 3D acceleration for graphics.

Benefits of virtualization

Virtualization brings several benefits to data center operators and service providers:

• Resource efficiency: Before virtualization, each application server required its own dedicated physical
CPU—IT staff would purchase and configure a separate server for each application they wanted to
run. (IT preferred one application and one operating system (OS) per computer for reliability reasons.)
Invariably, each physical server would be underused. In contrast, server virtualization lets you run
several applications—each on its own VM with its own OS—on a single physical computer (typically
an x86 server) without sacrificing reliability. This enables maximum utilization of the physical
hardware’s computing capacity.

• Easier management: Replacing physical computers with software-defined VMs makes it easier to use
and manage policies written in software. This allows you to create automated IT service management
workflows. For example, automated deployment and configuration tools enable administrators to
define collections of virtual machines and applications as services, in software templates. This means
that they can install those services repeatedly and consistently without cumbersome, time-consuming.
and error-prone manual setup. Admins can use virtualization security policies to mandate certain
security configurations based on the role of the virtual machine. Policies can even increase resource
efficiency by retiring unused virtual machines to save on space and computing power.

• Minimal downtime: OS and application crashes can cause downtime and disrupt user productivity.
Admins can run multiple redundant virtual machines alongside each other and failover between them
when problems arise. Running multiple redundant physical servers is more expensive.

• Faster provisioning: Buying, installing, and configuring hardware for each application is time-
consuming. Provided that the hardware is already in place, provisioning virtual machines to run all
your applications is significantly faster. You can even automate it using management software and
build it into existing workflows.

Benefits of Virtualization
• More flexible and efficient allocation of resources.
• Enhance development productivity.
• It lowers the cost of IT infrastructure.
• Remote access and rapid scalability.
• High availability and disaster recovery.
• Pay peruse of the IT infrastructure on demand.
• Enables running multiple operating systems.
Drawback of Virtualization
• High Initial Investment: Clouds have a very high initial investment, but it is also true that it will help
in reducing the cost of companies.
• Learning New Infrastructure: As the companies shifted from Servers to Cloud, it requires highly skilled
staff who have skills to work with the cloud easily, and for this, you have to hire new staff or provide
training to current staff.
• Risk of Data: Hosting data on third-party resources can lead to putting the data at risk, it has the
chance of getting attacked by any hacker or cracker very easily.
For more benefits and drawbacks, you can refer to the Pros and Cons of Virtualization.

Characteristics of Virtualization
• Increased Security: The ability to control the execution of a guest program in a completely transparent
manner opens new possibilities for delivering a secure, controlled execution environment. All the
operations of the guest programs are generally performed against the virtual machine, which then
translates and applies them to the host programs.
• Managed Execution: In particular, sharing, aggregation, emulation, and isolation are the most relevant
features.
• Sharing: Virtualization allows the creation of a separate computing environment within the same host.
• Aggregation: It is possible to share physical resources among several guests, but virtualization also
allows aggregation, which is the opposite process.

Types of Virtualization
1. Application Virtualization
2. Network Virtualization
3. Desktop Virtualization
4. Storage Virtualization
5. Server Virtualization
6. Data virtualization

Types of Virtualization
1. Application Virtualization: Application virtualization helps a user to have remote access to an
application from a server. The server stores all personal information and other characteristics of the
application but can still run on a local workstation through the internet. An example of this would be a
user who needs to run two different versions of the same software. Technologies that use application
virtualization are hosted applications and packaged applications.
2. Network Virtualization: The ability to run multiple virtual networks with each having a separate control
and data plan. It co-exists together on top of one physical network. It can be managed by individual parties
that are potentially confidential to each other. Network virtualization provides a facility to create and
provision virtual networks, logical switches, routers, firewalls, load balancers, Virtual Private Networks
(VPN), and workload security within days or even weeks.

Network Virtualization

3. Desktop Virtualization: Desktop virtualization allows the users’ OS to be remotely stored on a server
in the data center. It allows the user to access their desktop virtually, from any location by a different
machine. Users who want specific operating systems other than Windows Server will need to have a virtual
desktop. The main benefits of desktop virtualization are user mobility, portability, and easy management
of software installation, updates, and patches.
4. Storage Virtualization: Storage virtualization is an array of servers that are managed by a virtual
storage system. The servers aren’t aware of exactly where their data is stored and instead function more
like worker bees in a hive. It makes managing storage from multiple sources be managed and utilized as a
single repository. storage virtualization software maintains smooth operations, consistent performance,
and a continuous suite of advanced functions despite changes, breaks down, and differences in the
underlying equipment.
5. Server Virtualization: This is a kind of virtualization in which the masking of server resources takes
place. Here, the central server (physical server) is divided into multiple different virtual servers by changing
the identity number, and processors. So, each system can operate its operating systems in an isolated
manner. Where each sub-server knows the identity of the central server. It causes an increase in
performance and reduces the operating cost by the deployment of main server resources into a sub-server
resource. It’s beneficial in virtual migration, reducing energy consumption, reducing infrastructural costs,
etc.
 Server Virtualization

6. Data Virtualization: This is the kind of virtualization in which the data is collected from various
sources and managed at a single place without knowing more about the technical information like how
data is collected, stored & formatted then arranged that data logically so that its virtual view can be
accessed by its interested people and stakeholders, and users through the various cloud services
remotely. Many big giant companies are providing their services like Oracle, IBM, At scale, Cdata, etc.
Uses of Virtualization
• Data-integration
• Business-integration
• Service-oriented architecture data-services
• Searching organizational data

website: https://www.javatpoint.com/virtualization-in-cloud-computing

Virtualization in Cloud Computing

Virtualization is the "creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as a server, a
desktop, a storage device, an operating system or network resources".

In other words, Virtualization is a technique, which allows to share a single physical instance of a resource
or an application among multiple customers and organizations. It does by assigning a logical name to a
physical storage and providing a pointer to that physical resource when demanded.
What is the concept behind the Virtualization?
Creation of a virtual machine over existing operating system and hardware is known as Hardware
Virtualization. A Virtual machine provides an environment that is logically separated from the underlying
hardware.

The machine on which the virtual machine is going to create is known as Host Machine and that virtual
machine is referred as a Guest Machine

Types of Virtualization:
1. Hardware Virtualization.
2. Operating system Virtualization.
3. Server Virtualization.
4. Storage Virtualization.

1) Hardware Virtualization:
When the virtual machine software or virtual machine manager (VMM) is directly installed on the hardware
system is known as hardware virtualization.

The main job of hypervisor is to control and monitoring the processor, memory and other hardware
resources.

After virtualization of hardware system we can install different operating system on it and run different
applications on those OS.

Usage:

Hardware virtualization is mainly done for the server platforms, because controlling virtual machines is
much easier than controlling a physical server.

2) Operating System Virtualization:

When the virtual machine software or virtual machine manager (VMM) is installed on the Host operating
system instead of directly on the hardware system is known as operating system virtualization.

Usage:

Operating System Virtualization is mainly used for testing the applications on different platforms of OS.

3) Server Virtualization:
When the virtual machine software or virtual machine manager (VMM) is directly installed on the Server
system is known as server virtualization.

Usage:
Server virtualization is done because a single physical server can be divided into multiple servers on the
demand basis and for balancing the load.

4) Storage Virtualization:
Storage virtualization is the process of grouping the physical storage from multiple network storage devices
so that it looks like a single storage device.

Storage virtualization is also implemented by using software applications.

Usage:

Storage virtualization is mainly done for back-up and recovery purposes.