Virtualization, VMWare

Virtualization is a process that allows an unmodified operating system with all of its installed software to run in a special environment, on top of your existing operating system. This environment, called a "virtual machine", is created by the virtualization software by intercepting access to certain hardware components and certain features. The physical computer is then usually called the "host", while the virtual machine is often called a "guest". Most of the guest code runs unmodified, directly on the host computer, and the guest operating system "thinks" it's running on real machine.


Lanos Business Communications offers server consolidation virtualization along with client virtualization for use with terminal services, backup and disaster recovery techniques.

 

Virtual Infrastructure diagram

 


Virtualization Benefits

 

Following benefits are achieved

  • More efficient use of resources:
    With virtualization, capacity can be used more effectively, reducing the costs to acquire systems, the environmental (power cooling and real estate) costs required to run them, and the staff costs associated with managing the additional systems.

  • Fault isolation: An application error, operating system crash, or user error in one virtual machine will not affect the use of other virtual machines on the same system.
  • Increased security: By separating users and applications into different virtual machines you can use the resources of a single physical system securely, with their information and network traffic safely isolated from each other.

  • Rapid provisioning: Because a virtual machine's disk storage is usually represented as files or logical volumes, standard storage management techniques such as file copy or volume cloning can be used to create new virtual machines rapidly. This can cut the time to set up a new system from days to minutes.

  • Portability: The use of abstract devices within virtual machines, combined with the encapsulation of virtual data in file-backed or volume-backed virtual disks, makes it easy to move virtual machines from one physical system to another, for maintenance, more effective resource utilization, or simply for replicated provisioning. In many cases, running virtual machines can even be moved while they are online, with no interruption to service.