Virtualization in Cloud Computing

 

  Virtualization in Cloud Computing 

Virtualization is a technology that user can use to create virtual representations of servers, storage, networks, and other physical machines. It is the process of creating a virtual version of computer hardware. It was initially developed during the mainframe era.

With the help of virtualization, multiple operating systems and applications can run on same machine and its same hardware at the same time, increasing the utilization and flexibility of hardware. In other words, one of the main cost effective, hardware reducing, and energy saving techniques used by cloud providers is virtualization.

Virtualization allows to share a single physical instance of a resource or an application among multiple customers and organizations at one time. The machine on which the virtual machine is going to be built is known as Host Machine and that virtual machine is referred as a Guest Machine.

•  Types of Virtualization:

1.   Application Virtualization:

This type of virtualization helps a user to have a remote access of an application from a server. The server stores all the personal information and other characteristics of the application but can still run on a local machine through the internet. E.g. user who needs to run two different versions of the same software. This type of virtualization is used by hosted applications and packaged applications.

2.   Network Virtualization:

This type of virtualization that means the ability to run multiple virtual networks with each has a separate control and data plan. This virtualization provides a facility to create and provision virtual networks like logical switches, routers, firewalls, Virtual Private Network (VPN), load balancer and workload security within days or even in weeks.

3.   Desktop Virtualization:

This type of virtualization allows the users’ operating system to be remotely stored on a server in the data center. It allows the user to access their desktop virtually, from any location by a different machine. The main advantages of this virtualization are portability, easy management, easy software installation, updates and user mobility.

4.   Storage Virtualization:

Storage virtualization is an array of servers that are managed by a virtual storage system. The servers are not aware of exactly where their data is stored. It makes managing storage from multiple sources to be managed and utilized as a single source. This virtualization software maintains smooth operations, consistent performance and a continuous suite of advanced functions despite changes, break down and differences in the equipment. 

5.   Server Virtualization:

This type of virtualization in which masking of server resources takes place. In this type, the physical or central server is divided into multiple different virtual servers by changing its’ identity number, processors. So, each system can operate its own operating systems in isolate manner, and each sub-server knows the identity of the central server. It causes an increase in the performance and reduces the operating cost by the deployment of main server resources into a sub-server resource. It is more beneficial in reduce energy consumption, reduce infrastructural cost, etc.

One another kind of virtualization is data virtualization, in which the data is collected from variety of sources and managed that at a single place without knowing more about the technical information like how data is collected, stored and formatted then arranged that data logically so that its virtual view can be accessed by its interested people and stakeholders, and users through the various cloud services remotely.