Introduction

  • Virtualization & Hypervisors have transformed the landscape of IT infrastructure, enabling more efficient, flexible, and cost-effective management of computing resources.
  • By allowing multiple virtual machines (VMs) to run on a single physical server (bare metal), these technologies have become integral to modern data centers and cloud computing environments.

What is Virtualization?

  • Virtualization is the process of creating virtual versions of physical components, such as servers, storage devices, and networks.
  • Abstracts the hardware layer, allowing multiple operating systems and applications to run on single physical machine.

Understanding Hypervisors?

  • A hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM), is the software layer that enables virtualization.
  • It manages the hardware resources and creates isolated environments for each VM.
  • In simple terms, its a piece of software which creates virtual servers on top of Physical servers(bare metal) (issued to a single tenant/user/organization).

Types of Hypervisors?

Type 1 (Bare-Metal)(Hardware) Hypervisors:

  • These run directly on the physical hardware and provide high performance and efficiency.
  • Examples: VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V and KVM.

Type 2 (Hosted)(Software) Hypervisors:

  • These run on top of an existing operating system and are typically used for development and testing purposes.
  • Examples: VMware Workstation and Oracle VirtualBox.

Types of Hypervisors

Why Virtualization?

  • Efficiency: By running multiple VMs on a single physical server, virtualization maximizes hardware utilization and reduces the need for additional servers.

  • Cost Saving: Consolidating workloads onto fewer physical servers reduces hardware, power, and cooling costs.

  • Flexibility: Virtualization simplifies the deployment and management of applications, allowing for easy scaling and resource allocation.

  • Disaster Recovery: Virtual machines can be easily backed up and restored improving disaster recovery capabilities.

Conclusion

Virtualization and hypervisors are essential components of modern IT infrastructure. They provide the efficiency, flexibility, and cost savings needed to support today's dynamic and scalable computing environments.