Virtualization

It is the process of creating a virtual version of something such as an operating system, a server, storage devices, or network resources. Operating system virtualization enables the user to use software to run multiple operating systems on the same computer hardware. Some virtualization software also allows you the capability of dynamically adding more hardware to increase the power and range of the virtualized software. There are three main areas of virtualization that are increasingly becoming popular. One is network virtualization, where the combined bandwidth of the network is split into several channels independent from each other and which can be assigned to a particular server or device in real time. By using virtualization, users need not be concerned with the underlying complexity of the actual physical network. The second is to consolidate storage from multiple network storage devices into a single virtualized storage device that is managed from a single place. As far as the end-user is concerned, he will be dealing only with a hard disk, and will have no idea whether the drive is virtualized or not. The third is in server virtualization, where a user may have full access to a range of operating system services in a virtualized environment.