Cloud computing has become an everyday fact of 21st-century life, but how much do you know about how it works under the hood?
Enter virtualization, which is the main reason cloud computing exists as it does today.
This article explores virtualization in cloud computing, including what it is, its characteristics, uses, and the concepts behind it. We will break down the different types of virtualization in cloud computing, its benefits, and limitations. Finally, we will share a cloud computing program you can take to boost your skills.
But before we dive deep into virtualization and cloud computing, let’s look at a definition.
What’s Virtualization in the Context of Cloud Computing
At a very basic level, virtualization is the technological process that creates an abstract virtual version of a physical asset. Virtualization creates virtual systems by employing software to simulate hardware functionality. This practice lets IT organizations operate multiple operating systems, with multiple virtual systems and various applications residing on a single server.
So, What is Virtualization in Cloud Computing?
Virtualization makes cloud computing possible and is considered its foundation. Consider cloud computing to be simply virtualization conducted on a massive scale. Virtualization lets millions of users share a single physical resource virtually and simultaneously. In other words, cloud computing!
Like there’s no Bitcoin without blockchain, there’s no cloud computing without virtualization. Since virtualization can create copies of any IT element and resource, cloud computing providers can offer products such as Infrastructure as a Service (or IaaS), Platform as a Service (or PaaS for short), and Software as a Service (also known as SaaS), to name a few.
Let’s get more familiar with virtualization and cloud computing by discussing the concepts behind virtualization.
What is the Concept Behind Virtualization, and How Does it Work?
Hardware virtualization is the creation of virtual machines over an existing operating system and hardware. Virtual machines provide an environment logically separated from the underlying hardware. The machine where the virtual machine is created is called the host machine, and the virtual machine is known as the guest machine.
Hypervisors are software applications that let you create a virtual layer over a hardware system that manages interactions between virtual machines and the host system’s hardware resources. Hypervisors are installed like other software applications and conduct virtualization, acting as a connection between physical systems and virtual machines, ensuring proper access to hardware resources.
Hypervisors also ensure that virtual machines don’t interfere with each other’s computing resources and memory. Additionally, a hypervisor manages all virtual machines, typically known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM).
Hypervisors come in two types:
- Type 1. This hypervisor, called a bare-metal hypervisor, interacts directly with the system’s hardware resources, replacing the host operating system.
- Type 2. This type of hypervisor runs like a software application on the host operating system and coordinates hardware resource management for the virtual machines.
Virtualization’s Role in Cloud Computing
In cloud computing, users store their data in the cloud, but thanks to virtualization, they enjoy the extra benefit of sharing the infrastructure. Although cloud providers take responsibility for the necessary physical resources, they charge steep service fees. However, virtualization in cloud computing helps users and organizations maintain those required services, which helps reduce the company’s costs.
Let’s take a closer look at the types of virtualization and cloud computing.
The Types of Virtualization in Cloud Computing
Here are the six primary types of virtualization in cloud computing. Although some sources give these types of virtualization different names, ultimately, it’s all the same thing.
- Data Virtualization. Data virtualization involves collecting data from different sources and managing it in a single place without getting involved on the technical side, such as how the data is collected, stored, and formatted. This data is then arranged logically so stakeholders, users, and other authorized interested parties can access its virtual view remotely through cloud services.
- Hardware Virtualization. Hardware virtualization is primarily done with server platforms since controlling virtual machines is considerably easier than controlling physical servers. It’s known as hardware virtualization when virtual machine software or a virtual machine manager is directly installed on a hardware system. The hypervisor’s primary purpose is controlling and monitoring the memory, processor, and other hardware resources. Once the hardware system is virtualized, users can install different operating systems and run many applications on that OS.
- Application Virtualization. Application virtualization grants users remote access to an application from the server. The server stores the application’s personal information and other characteristics but can still run on local workstations via the Internet. Hosted applications and packaged applications use application virtualization. An example of application virtualization would be a user who would like to run two different versions of the same software application.
- Operating System Virtualization. OS virtualization is chiefly used to test applications on different OS platforms. It’s called operating system virtualization when virtual machine software or a virtual machine manager is installed on the host’s operating system instead of directly on the hardware system.
- Server Virtualization. It’s called server virtualization when virtual machine software or a virtual machine manager (VMM) is directly installed on a server system. Customers use server virtualization because one physical server can be split into multiple servers on demand and for load balancing.
- Storage Virtualization. Storage virtualization is mainly done for backup and recovery. Storage virtualization involves grouping physical storage from multiple network storage devices to look like a single storage device. Storage virtualization can be implemented using software applications.
The Characteristics of Virtualization and Cloud Computing
There are four characteristics commonly found in every example of virtualization. They are:
- Aggregation. Although multiple users can share physical resources, virtualization additionally allows aggregation. Specifically, aggregation combines physical servers and their CPU power and memory to create one large virtual machine. Virtualization for aggregation is the opposite of your traditional server virtualization, the latter which partitions one physical system so that multiple OSes can run on it.
- Increased Security. Controlling guest programs’ execution transparently offers more significant potential for delivering secure, controlled execution environments. Guest program operations are customarily performed against the virtual machine, translating and applying the operations to the host programs.
- Managed Execution. Specifically, this involves aggregation, sharing, emulation, and isolation.
- Sharing. Virtualization lets you create separate computing environments within the same host.
The Benefits of Virtualization
Virtualization in cloud computing brings many benefits to customers, such as:
- It provides enhanced development productivity.
- It lets customers run multiple operating systems
- It lowers the costs of IT infrastructure and spares organizations the need to invest time, resources, and money into bringing new systems online.
- It provides more flexible and efficient resource allocation.
- It offers better remote access and rapid scalability.
- It provides high availability and dependable disaster recovery.
- There is minimum downtime since multiple virtual systems can run together and change over in the event of a crash.
Limitations of Virtualization
However, virtualization has its drawbacks, such as:
- It demands skilled personnel. As companies shift from in-house servers to the cloud, they require trained staff with the skills necessary to work with the cloud easily, which means hiring new staff or conducting in-house training of existing staff.
- There are risks to data. Hosting data on third-party resources may put the data at risk, as there’s always the chance of getting attacked by a hacker or other unauthorized users.
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FAQ
Q: What is virtualization in cloud computing?
A: Virtualization in cloud computing is a technology that lets users create virtual resources like networks, servers, and storage in the cloud. These resources are allocated from physical machines that run worldwide, and users run the software needed to provision and manage these virtual resources. The physical machines are operated by cloud providers responsible for maintenance and hardware supplies.
Q: Where is virtualization used in cloud computing?
A: Virtualization is used by many businesses and organizations to operate e-mail servers, handle databases, and run customer relationship management (CRM) systems.
Q: What’s the difference between virtualization and cloud computing?
A: Virtualization creates a simulated version of a machine’s hardware or software components, but cloud computing is a model that lets users conveniently access a shared pool of resources.
