Virtual Computers, Machines Inside a Machine

Virtual Machines

What is a “virtual machine”? Virtual Machines are the new wave of future processing. Basically, what happens in the case of a virtual machine is, a super machine is created and divided into a number of machines managed via a core operating system. After the construction of the host system (system hosting the virtual machines) a master Operating System is installed which provides virtualization capabilities on which multiple standard Operating Systems can run.

Benefits of Virtualization

Virtualization is a technology that provides many benefits. Among them are speed, centralization, and economy. When considering the benefit of speed for instance, there is a tremendous benefit as communication between machines is now available at bus speed instead of ethernet or other means of “external” communication. Centralization puts management of multiple machines at a central interface. This allows you to minimize management time windows and concentrate on other issues that are more important than maintenance routine. Bordering on economy is the minimization of physical construction. This includes hardware that is necessary to power and construct multiple, independent machines, communication medium, UPSs and any other hardware necessary to support your specific requirements.

Redundancy

Another excellent benefit of virtualization is the minimal points of physical failure. Even though you are located on a single, central machine, redundancy is provided by the “redundancy structure configuration” of that hardware. In other words, to provide an adequate level of physical redundancy, the configuration of your host machine must match that of multiple external machines to an extent. This of course is provided by multiple instances of the hardware from which your host is constructed. Multiple instances of the hardware structure includes but is not limited to, RAID arrays, power supplies, CPUs, and external mediums of communication. At any rate, redundancy is critical and should be a well maintained priority of your System Structure.

Sources of Virtualization

Who provides resources for virtualization? There are quite a few sources for virtualization Operating Systems available and you may wish to consider different developers depending on the specific purpose or environment in which you plan to implementing your virtual system. Some of the major providers like Vmware and VirtualBox have multiple levels of virtualization available, ranking from a starting point such as desktop environments all the way up to an enterprise solution.

Virtualization Environments

Virtualization at this point is quite popular and is often implemented in ISP-like environments where the demand multiple servers to perform a specific task is high. Although not extremely popular on a more local or personal basis, even small businesses and home users may begin to see implementations of this technology. Virtualization for small businesses and home users will most likely be a prescription for Multimedia and other hardware intensive applications.

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