What is Virtualization? Virtualization is a proven software technology that is rapidly transforming the IT landscape and fundamentally changing the way that people compute.
Today’s powerful x86 computer hardware was originally designed to run only a single operating system and a single application, but virtualization breaks that bond, making it possible to run multiple operating systems and multiple applications on the same computer at the same time, increasing the utilization and flexibility of hardware. Virtualization is a technology that can benefit anyone who uses a computer, from IT professionals and Mac enthusiasts to commercial businesses and government organizations. Join the millions of people around the world who use virtualization to save time, money and energy while achieving more with the computer hardware they already own.
Discover what virtualization can do for you. How Does Virtualization Work? In essence, virtualization lets you transform hardware into software. Use software such as VMware ESX to transform or “virtualize” the hardware resources of an x86-based computer—including the CPU, RAM, hard disk and network controller—to create a fully functional virtual machine that can run its own operating system and applications just like a “real” computer.
Multiple virtual machines share hardware resources without interfering with each other so that you can safely run several operating systems and applications at the same time on a single computer. The VMware Approach to Virtualization The VMware approach to virtualization inserts a thin layer of software directly on the computer hardware or on a host operating system. This software layer creates virtual machines and contains a virtual machine monitor or “hypervisor” that allocates hardware resources dynamically and transparently so that multiple operating systems can run concurrently on a single physical computer without even knowing it.
However, virtualizing a single physical computer is just the beginning. VMware offers a robust virtualization platform that can scale across hundreds of interconnected physical computers and storage devices to form an entire virtual infrastructure. History of Virtualization Virtualization is a proven concept that was first developed in the 1960s to partition large, mainframe hardware. Today, computers based on x86 architecture are faced with the same problems of rigidity and underutilization that mainframes faced in the 1960s. VMware invented virtualization for the x86 platform in the 1990s to address underutilization and other issues, overcoming many challenges in the process.
Today, VMware is the global leader in x86 virtualization and has achieved success that is building momentum for virtualization in all x86 computers. In the Beginning: Mainframe Virtualization Virtualization was first implemented more than 30 years ago by IBM as a way to logically partition mainframe computers into separate virtual machines. These partitions allowed mainframes to “multitask”: run multiple applications and processes at the same time. Since mainframes were expensive resources at the time, they were designed for partitioning as a way to fully leverage the investment. The Need for x86 Virtualization Virtualization was effectively abandoned during the 1980s and 1990s when client-server applications and inexpensive x86 servers and desktops established the model of distributed computing. Rather than sharing resources centrally in the mainframe model, organizations used the low cost of distributed systems to build up islands of computing capacity. The broad adoption of Windows and the emergence of Linux as server operating systems in the 1990s established x86 servers as the industry standard. The growth in x86 server and desktop deployments has introduced new IT infrastructure and operational challenges. These challenges include: - Low Infrastructure Utilization. Typical x86 server deployments achieve an average utilization of only 10% to 15% of total capacity, according to International Data Corporation (IDC), a market research firm. Organizations typically run one application per server to avoid the risk of vulnerabilities in one application affecting the availability of another application on the same server.
- Increasing Physical Infrastructure Costs. The operational costs to support growing physical infrastructure have steadily increased. Most computing infrastructure must remain operational at all times, resulting in power consumption, cooling and facilities costs that do not vary with utilization levels.
- Increasing IT Management Costs. As computing environments become more complex, the level of specialized education and experience required for infrastructure management personnel and the associated costs of such personnel have increased. Organizations spend disproportionate time and resources on manual tasks associated with server maintenance, and thus require more personnel to complete these tasks.
- Insufficient Failover and Disaster Protection. Organizations are increasingly affected by the downtime of critical server applications and inaccessibility of critical end user desktops. The threat of security attacks, natural disasters, health pandemics and terrorism has elevated the importance of business continuity planning for both desktops and servers.
- High Maintenance end-user desktops. Managing and securing enterprise desktops present numerous challenges. Controlling a distributed desktop environment and enforcing management, access and security policies without impairing users’ ability to work effectively is complex and expensive. Numerous patches and upgrades must be continually applied to desktop environments to eliminate security vulnerabilities.
The VMware Solution: Full Virtualization of x86 Hardware In 1999, VMware introduced virtualization to x86 systems as a means to efficiently address many of these challenges and to transform x86 systems into general purpose, shared hardware infrastructure that offers full isolation, mobility and operating system choice for application environments. Challenges & Obstacles to x86 Virtualization Unlike mainframes, x86 machines were not designed to support full virtualization, and VMware had to overcome formidable challenges to create virtual machines out of x86 computers.
The basic function of most CPUs, both in mainframes and in PCs, is to execute a sequence of stored instructions (ie, a software program). In x86 processors, there are 17 specific instructions that create problems when virtualized, causing the operating system to display a warning, terminate the application, or simply crash altogether. As a result, these 17 instructions were a significant obstacle to the initial implementation of virtualization on x86 computers.
To handle the problematic instructions in the x86 architecture, VMware developed an adaptive virtualization technique that “traps” these instructions as they are generated and converts them into safe instructions that can be virtualized, while allowing all other instructions to be executed without intervention. The result is a high-performance virtual machine that matches the host hardware and maintains total software compatibility. VMware pioneered this technique and is today the undisputed leader in virtualization technology. Discover the Value of Virtualization Virtualization is a technology that can benefit anyone who uses a computer. Millions of people and thousands of organizations around the world—including all of the Fortune 100—use VMware virtualization solutions to reduce IT costs while increasing the efficiency, utilization and flexibility of their existing computer hardware. Read below to discover how virtualization can benefit your organization. Top 5 Reasons to Adopt Virtualization Software - Server Consolidation and Infrastructure Optimization: Virtualization makes it possible to achieve significantly higher resource utilization by pooling common infrastructure resources and breaking the legacy “one application to one server” model.
- Physical Infrastructure Cost Reduction: With virtualization, you can reduce the number of servers and related IT hardware in the data center. This leads to reductions in real estate, power and cooling requirements, resulting in significantly lower IT costs.
- Improved Operational Flexibility & Responsiveness: Virtualization offers a new way of managing IT infrastructure and can help IT administrators spend less time on repetitive tasks such as provisioning, configuration, monitoring and maintenance.
- Increased Application Availability & Improved Business Continuity: Eliminate planned downtime and recover quickly from unplanned outages with the ability to securely backup and migrate entire virtual environments with no interruption in service.
- Improved Desktop Manageability & Security: Deploy, manage and monitor secure desktop environments that end users can access locally or remotely, with or without a network connection, on almost any standard desktop, laptop or tablet PC
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