Virtualisation

Virtualisation is an new technology that essentially lets one physical computer do the job of multiple computers, all whilst sharing the resources and hardware of the single machine.

There are a number of uses for this technology, both in servers and in desktop machines. You can host multiple operating systems and applications both locally and remotely. As well as this there are also significant cost savings in only needing the one machine to run multiple operating systems, along with less energy required to power a fewer number of physical hardware devices.

One of the most important benefits is in redundancy and better systems uptime. In a server environment, running two virtual machines on the one physical server means they can both be kept perfectly in-sync with the identical information on both. Should one fail or experience a major error, the software will automatically switch onto the second virtual machine, completely seamlessly for the user. This would be in comparison to having two servers, which would cost more, use more space and be less power efficient.

What is a virtual machine?
A virtual machine is a completely isolated software ‘container’ that can run its own operating system and application. Each virtual machine will run exactly like a physical computer (with memory and CPU, all virtualised by the software).

Virtual Machine Benefits:

• Compatibility – A virtual machine is essentially the same as a physical computer, with its own “virtual” CPU, memory and associated resources.
• Isolation – Each virtual machine is completely isolated from the other, meaning that a failure in one virtual machine will not in any way affect the others.
• Encapsulation – Because a virtual machine is an independent bundle of virtualised hardware, running operating systems and software, each instance can be moved as if it was an individual file. This leads to great portability, reliability and convenience.
• Hardware Independence – The virtual machines themselves are independent of the hardware platform, meaning that they can operate on a different set of hardware to what is physically available. This provides even further scalability and disaster recovery abilities.