What are the Main Types of Virtualization
Virtualization has become prevalent in both tech and non-tech industries. It has various tech industry applications such as network security and cloud architecture.
This article aims to discuss the basics of virtualization and help you to become familiar with the different types of virtualization.
What is Virtualization?
Simply put, virtualization is the software representation of hardware or hardware-bound software services, usually in a layer abstracted away from the physically available resources.
A common example of virtualization can be seen when partitioning a physical hard drive into multiple virtual disks.
Advantages of Virtualization
There are many benefits of virtualization because it has applications in different areas. It is known to boost IT agility and scalability, which eventually helps you minimize the cost of the IT processes.
Similarly, operating costs are reduced as well. Using virtualization in cloud systems like business clouds is useful in better data management. Overall, virtualization plays a critical role in making the IT processes simpler, cost-effective, and easy to maintain.
Virtualization & Cloud Computing
Even though cloud computing and virtualization are often used interchangeably, there are some striking differences between virtualization and cloud systems like VMWare Cloud.
Virtualization allows computing environments to be independent of physical hardware. On the other hand, cloud computing is basically a service that offers shared computing resources on-demand.
Organizations rely on cloud services providers such as VMWare clouds and private clouds. Companies, especially large-scale businesses, often virtualize their servers and move to cloud computing to get more control over the IT processes.
There are many types of virtualization available; in this article, we discuss seven of the most common.
1. OS Virtualization
As the name suggests, OS virtualization means virtualizing an OS environment. It is the most common type of virtualization. It involves creating multiple instances of an operating system such as Windows on a single machine.
As a result, businesses can cut down on the hardware required to run their software by cutting down the number of physical devices. It also cuts the cost of cables, energy, space, and overall IT infrastructure.
2. Application – Server Virtualization
Application-server virtualization is another popular type of virtualization. Implementations of this type of architecture have been common since the early days of virtualization. It is often referred to as load balancing because this type of virtualization involves distributing an application across multiple servers.
The benefit of application-server virtualization is its ability to balance software workload in a scalable manner without putting too much load on a single physical server or application. It is also helpful in user-friendly management of the servers and applications and enhancing network security.
3. Application Virtualization
Application-server virtualization is often confused with application virtualization. However, application virtualization is quite different from application-server virtualization. This type of virtualization runs applications as if they are operating on the local computer when they are actually running on a server.
Microsoft Terminal Services (Remote Desktop Services) and cloud-based software like business clouds and VMWare clouds highly depend on application virtualization, helping to ensure the software security and manage updates.
4. Hardware Virtualization
Hardware virtualization is a less common form of virtualization. Some aspects of hardware virtualization are similar to OS virtualization, though they are, in fact, often necessary for OS virtualization too.
The primary difference is that instead of placing multiple software instances on a single machine, the machine itself is partitioned.
5. Administrative Virtualization
Administrative virtualization is relatively uncommon. It is mainly used in data to segment administrative roles according to group and user policies, allowing companies to limit access to servers, infrastructure, and applications.
6. Network Virtualization
Network virtualization deals with network and network security aspects such as using tools such as routing tables, switches, and VLAN tags.
7. Storage Virtualization
Storage virtualization uses a collection of servers that are fully managed by a virtual storage system. The servers themselves are not usually aware of the data content, as this task is offloaded to the management software
The Bottom Line
Understanding the most common types of virtualization is a great step towards understanding what virtualization can do for your business in common with a VMWare cloud, business cloud, or private cloud service.
Although a common buzzword, virtualization is a useful tool to complement any combined IT strategy.