Virtualization vs. Cloud Computing

What is Virtualization?

Virtualization is a simple concept with a wide range of uses. In essence, virtualization is the process of creating a simulated, or virtual, machine (the guest)—an emulated computer system that exists solely in the software realm and that operates within a physical machine (the host). The guest machine has memory, a CPU, storage space, and an operating system, all defined by software rather than hardware. Virtual machines come in all sizes and have configurable parameters to support different workloads and use cases—sometimes they are created to emulate older, out-of-date hardware, and sometimes they offer a strategic approach to managing resources.

To work, virtual machines need software called a hypervisor, which acts as a resource manager and interfaces between the host and the guest. The hypervisor allocates the necessary memory, processing power, and storage space for the virtual machine. It also manages the applications and general health of the virtual machine while it’s active. Applications within a virtual machine are completely separated from the host machine, so guests and hosts cannot interact with each other’s files in any way.

In addition to virtual machine , containers is provide provide another way of handle virtualization . While containers is are and virtual machine are sometimes confused — and while there are some similarity — they have different function . A container is is is a dedicated and standalone runtime environment for an individual application , whereas a virtual machine provide a software – drive environment . While a virtual machine may be used specifically to access an individual application , it is has has the capability to do much more than that . If you only need to run a single application , a container is be may be a more resource – friendly option than a virtual machine .

Virtualization provides many benefits, including clearer resource allocation and hard silos between software resources. For an individual, an example use case might be installing a separate operating system on a physical computer (for example, Linux on a Windows machine). For an enterprise, virtualization can offer an easier path to server consolidation, among other benefits.