There Is a Computer Virtual Machine in Your Personal and Professional Lifes - Part 1

What is Computer Virtualization? What is Virtual Machine VM? The following are some excerpts about this extraodinary boom that will change the current IT world in the next two or three years. In my opinion this boom will be equivalent to the PC boom 30 years ago.

1. Virtualization software allows a single computer to create several virtual, rather than actual, versions of a computing environment. With virtualization, one physical machine can host multiple virtual versions of an operating system and run them simultaneously.

2. Virtualization allows multiple virtual machines, with heterogeneous operating systems to run in isolation, side-by-side on the same physical machine. Each virtual machine has its own set of virtual hardware (e.g., RAM, CPU, NIC, etc.) upon which an operating system and applications are loaded. The operating system sees a consistent, normalized set of hardware regardless of the actual physical hardware components.

3. Virtual machines are encapsulated into files, making it possible to rapidly save, copy and provision a virtual machine. Full systems (fully configured applications, operating systems, BIOS and virtual hardware) can be moved, within seconds, from one physical server to another for zero-downtime maintenance and continuous workload consolidation.

4. More companies are now realizing the benefits of server optimization and consolidation to attain the full potential of their hardware investments. Virtualization technology has emerged as an effective way of implementing consolidation and maximizing computing capacity while reducing server count.

5. The Virtualization infrastructure approach to IT management creates virtual services out of the physical IT infrastructure, enabling administrators to allocate these virtual resources quickly to the business units that need them most.

This article continue in the Part 2.

About the Author:

S. Maurer is a 53-years old college graduated IT professional, with 30 years of experience in the computer & technology business. Now is the Correspondence Courses Director of the Abet Open University: http://mba-open-university.net and http://cio-certification-ccio.net..