| There is a lot of buzz going around about | | | | setting up multiple physical machines fortesting or |
| Virtualization. | | | | taking the risk of causing problems by testing ina |
| What is Virtualization, and what benefits does it | | | | production environment. |
| provide? | | | | You can run Virtualization software on pretty much |
| In this article we will take a look at the technology to | | | | anyplatform. Once the software is installed it is simple |
| seehow it can provide a great deal of flexibility and | | | | tocreate virtual machine instances. Virtual machines |
| costeffectiveness for IT professionals and software | | | | are justa set of files located on the host machine. |
| developers. | | | | You configureyour virtual machine settings on the |
| Virtualization technology allows multiple virtual | | | | host computer, installthe operating system and you |
| machinesto run on a single host computer. These | | | | are ready to go. It is a verycommon practice to use |
| virtual machines canrun different operating systems, | | | | a master image of a virtual machine. |
| such as Windows, Linux and | | | | This master image can be a fully configured machine, |
| UNIX. Each virtual machine has its own set of | | | | withthe operating system and all required |
| virtualhardware resources (e.g., CPU, RAM, Hard | | | | applicationsinstalled. You can then rapidly deploy virtual |
| Drive, etc)allowing the operating system to run as if | | | | machines bycopying the master image to multiple |
| it were installedon a physical machine. | | | | Virtualization hosts toprovide zero downtime and |
| The benefits of Virtualization technology are far | | | | 100% server availability. |
| reaching. | | | | There are a number of Virtualization products |
| Many organizations have moved to the virtual | | | | available. |
| machinesolution to consolidate multiple servers, | | | | VMWare, which is probably the most popular, |
| running side byside on a single physical machine. | | | | recentlyannounced that it will be releasing a free |
| Server consolidationallows IT professionals to fully | | | | version of its |
| utilize server resources,while isolating virtual machines | | | | GSX Server product. This will allow any organization |
| and allowing them to rundifferent operating systems | | | | to hostvirtual machines on either Windows or Linux |
| and applications. Softwaredevelopers utilize virtual | | | | hosts. Other |
| machine technology to quicklytest applications on | | | | Virtualization products include Microsoft's Virtual |
| different operating systems, withoutthe hassle of | | | | Server and SWsoft's Virtuozzo, just to name a few. |