Retro gaming is on the rise thanks to mini consoles, like the SNES Classic, and the games readily accessible online. But prior to this, you had to use emulators to revisit classics games. This involved downloading software and ROMs that allow your computer to mimic classic gaming consoles. Virtualization is a similar process.
Simply put, it’s the process of running a virtual computer. Virtualization involves software that allows you to run virtual systems, hardware, and applications from one single computer. It’s most commonly used to run multiple operating systems, such as Windows and Linux, from one device.
It’s can also help run large operating systems. With virtualization, you can partition a large system into many smaller ones to efficiently utilize the hardware. Take servers, for example. Rather than have multiple servers handle different tasks, virtualization lets you divide a single server for various uses. So instead of having servers for mail, networking, and apps that aren’t being used to their full capacity, one of them can be split to handle both mail and apps. By doing this, you maximize the server’s efficiency.
How does virtualization work?
The process is based on hypervisors, software that divides up physical resources so virtual machines can use them. There are two classes of hypervisors: “bare metal” hypervisors that act as an operating system because they run guest virtual machines directly on a system’s hardware and “hosted” hypervisors that act more like traditional programs that can be started or stopped as needed.
Types of virtualization
There are different types of virtualization that apply to other IT infrastructure elements such as:
Data Virtualization
Data virtualization brings together data from multiple sources and allows any application access to that data, regardless of source, location, and format. A software layer is created between the applications accessing the data and the systems storing it. The layer then takes an application’s data request and returns results that can span multiple systems.
Application Virtualization
Application virtualization lets you run software without directly installing it on your operating system. For instance, this would allow you to run Linux on a Windows application. You can do this via a server, where the application runs entirely on a server that sends the user interface to the client device; application streaming, where the application lives on a server and sends small components of the software to your device; or locally, where the entire application runs on the endpoint device but runs in a runtime environment instead of on the native hardware.
Network Virtualization
Network virtualization separates a network’s elements and functions, like IP configuration and file sharing, and assigns them to a particular server in real-time. This allows network administrators to modify and control these elements without touching any physical components.
Desktop Virtualization
This lets you run multiple operating systems on the same computer. This can be done via virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), which runs multiple desktops on a central server and streams them to users who login on client devices; or local desktop virtualization, which runs a hypervisor on a local computer and allows you to run an additional operating system on that computer.
Storage Virtualization
Storage virtualization takes all storage devices on a network – both those that are installed on individual servers and standalone ones – and lets you access and manage them as a single storage device. Storing them in a shared pool allows them to be assigned to any virtual machine on the network as needed.
Benefits and drawbacks
Virtualization has many benefits, like cutting costs, increasing efficiency, saving server space, and security advantages. Unlike standard computers, virtualization makes it easy to rollback malware infections. The virtual machine can even be recreated or deleted if necessary.
But security can also be virtualization’s weakness. If the hypervisor is attacked, it puts all connected virtual machines and operating systems at risk. Hypervisors allow virtual machines to communicate with each other without a physical network, so it can be difficult to detect suspicious activity.
It’s not perfect, but it seems virtualization is the next tech trend on the rise. Considering that just about everything lives on the cloud, it makes sense for IT administrators to use a similar process to keep operations running smoothly. As tech demands increase, virtualization will be a viable solution for cutting costs while maximizing efficiency.
Sources:
https://www.redhat.com/en/topics/virtualization/what-is-virtualization
https://www.ibm.com/cloud/blog/5-benefits-of-virtualization
https://www.ibm.com/cloud/learn/virtualization-a-complete-guide
https://searchservervirtualization.techtarget.com/definition/virtualization
https://opensource.com/resources/virtualization
Picture:
https://www.redswitches.com/blog/different-types-virtualization-cloud-computing-explained/