Understanding Virtualization

By Dan Kusnetzky published: Thursday, November 15 2007 VIRTUALIZATION — FROM MAINFRAMES TO INDUSTRY STANDARD SYSTEMS Virtualization has been a mainstay of mainframes and midrange systems for over 30 years. Now that this technology has become avaialble on industry standard systems running high-volume operating systems, such as Windows, Linux and Unix, the word “virtualization” has become a major catch phrase being bandied about in the media today. Unfortunately, the media mistakenly equates virtual machine technology, technology that can encapsulate all of the software that runs on a physical system and allows that capsule to run along side of others on a single system, with virtualization itself. Virtualization It is often presented as something new and different rather than a well-established group of technologies with a long track record of success in data centers around the world. The exciting news is that virtualization technology, something that has been part of mainstream IT for decades, is now available as part of agile high volume, industry standard environments as well. It is due to the efforts of Intel and other suppliers of IT hardware and software that this has occurred. WHAT IS VIRTUALIZATION? Virtualization is the use of hardware and software technology to present a logical view of resources. This logical view is often strikingly different than the actual physical view. What does this really mean? Well, it depends upon which type of virtualization technology being examined. Users may see the image of many different computers even though it is a single system. They may see many individual systems as a single computing resource. Individuals can be allowed to access computing solutions with devices that didn't exist when developers created the applications. Applications may appear to use devices that have long been considered obsolete even though none are actually present. As one might expect, adding layers of software between the application and the underlying physical system could have performance implications. After all, the underlying systems are doing more work to support this logical or virtualized view to developers and users. Intel and other suppliers have been investing heavily in technology that would ease that burden and provide levels of performance in virtualized systems that closely approximates the performance of a physical system. THE MANY FACES OF VIRTUALIZATION There are many layers of technology that virtualize some portion of a computing environment. Each of these tools can be applied to making industry standard systems part of a larger, more efficient, more productive computing environment. Here’s a graphical representation of those tools. Let’s quickly review how each type of virtualization helps organizations. Access Virtualization makes it possible for nearly any type of device to be used to access nearly any type of application over just about any type of network. Using this technology, developers aren’t forced to change applications to allow individuals get things done using a hand held device, a thin client, a laptop computer or even a desktop system. Application virtualization creates a protected environment that makes it possible to automatically restart an application in case of a failure, start another instance of an application if the application is not meeting service level objectives, or provide workload balancing among multiple instances of an application. Processing virtualization hides the physical hardware configuration and makes it possible, on the one hand, to present a single system as if it were many or, on the other hand, to present many systems as if it were a single resource. Tools such as Intel® Virtualization Technology (Intel® VT) really help with the tasks found in this layer. Storage virtualization presents a logical view of storage that allows many systems to share a single storage device that’s located on the network. Network virtualization presents a logical view of network resources that is secure and managed. Management and security software makes it possible administrators to treat many systems as a single computing resource. I’ll be writing more about products that fit in these layers of technology, how they’re being used and how they’re being misused. It is important to have a clear picture of the organizations goals before selecting a specific type of virtualization technology or hardware platform. Daniel Kusnetzky has over 30 years of industry experience. He is responsible for research and analysis on open source software, virtualization software and system software. He examines emerging technology trends, vendor strategies, research and development issues and end-user integration requirements. In the past he was executive vice president for Open-Xchange, Inc., and Program Vice President of System Software Research for International Data Corporation. The Kusnetzky Group is an independent supplier of marketing services to suppliers end user organizations and suppliers in the systems, virtualization and open source technology markets. Intel and several suppliers of virtualization technology are among those companies. The opinions presented in this document are based upon our research, our personal experiences and actual use of technology regardless of whether this document or the supporting research were sponsored by one or more of the Kusnetzky Group’s clients. This document may not be copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the Kusnetzky Group. Document #20071023 The Kusnetzky Group © 2007

 

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