Virtualization Technology: Someone Please Explain in Simple Language

LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciersEagle River, Alaska Icrontian
edited July 2006 in Hardware
Virtualization technology - it has something to do with operating systems running without emulation, that much I understand.

But please, would someone explain it more fully, but use simple terminology. I scoured the Internet looking for explanations and found a lot of discussions that I simply did not understand. Also, would someone please discuss the virtues of this technology, if any, for a desktop computer use.

Comments

  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited July 2006
    I believe VT tech is multitasking for Operating systems. The CPU has the ability to run multiple OS's simultaneously. The CPU virtualizes the machine so that each OS thinks it's running on it's own computer.

    Intel, AMD spar over virtualization

    X86 virtualization
  • airbornflghtairbornflght Houston, TX Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    yeh, we just installed VMware today at the school Im working at, actually, I stood their and watched, and the tech stuck 2 gigs of ram in the server, and a consultant that is being paid $30k for 2 weeks that was remoted in installed it.
  • LeonardoLeonardo Wake up and smell the glaciers Eagle River, Alaska Icrontian
    edited July 2006
    Omega, your plain language explanation just enabled me to understand all or most of the stuff I Googled.
  • Omega65Omega65 Philadelphia, Pa
    edited July 2006
    :bigggrin: :bigggrin: :bigggrin:
  • deicistdeicist Manchester, UK
    edited July 2006
    I use VMware at work. It's crazy cool stuff... You can set up virtual networks to run test scenarios on, or run multiple servers on the same hardware. with VMware the virtual machines are just files (like a disk image) so you can store those on a SAN or NAS, run the actual servers on a box and if that box goes down you just point another box at the images and your servers are back up and running instantly. Or for another example, if you're running a main server as a virtual machine and want to do an upgrade. Just make a copy of the virtual machine, run it on a test server and test the upgrade on that. The virtual machine is exactly the same no matter what hardware you run it on so you know the test server will respond in exactly the same way as your live server.

    Also, the new chips from AMD and Intel have virtualization support at the hardware level which cuts out most of the overhead.
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