One of the hottest trends over the past two years has been virtualization. You have most likely encountered this term. Technologists, just like physicians, like to use terms unique to the profession. They often fail to explain in plain terms what they mean.
The idea of virtualization is not new. Its wider acceptance is. Virtualization has become more of a reality with the introduction of multicore processors, 64 bit computing and 64 bit operating systems for the PC, allowing the use of more system memory (a few more technical buzzwords). Virtualization is nothing more than allowing one computer behave as if it was two, three, four or more. These “computers” within a computer are then called virtual machines. This is achieved is by using special virtualizing software. Technology and market leaders in this area are VMWare, Citrix, and now Microsoft. There are obvious advantages to virtualization, but just like any other innovation, there are disadvantages. Here they are:
Advantages of virtualization
- Less hardware
- Hardware savings
- Space and energy savings
- Easier maintenance
- Built in disaster recovery features (typically extra cost for this feature, Microsoft I behind with this)
- Better standardization
- In some settings faster processing
Disadvantages of virtualization
- Occasionally when something fails, all fails
- Tendency to overuse resulting in system degradation (decline in the speed of processing)
- Inherent loss of processing speed as the result of sharing resources such as storage devices (hard disks)
- Does add some extra complexity and the need to manage that
- Savings may not be as much as hoped for
Virtualization is a welcome development, and it is here to stay and expand its role. The near future will see variously configured computer systems sold already virtualized out of the box. This will make this technology more readily available, deployable and more cost effective.
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