An Overview of Virtualization

IndioMan writes to point us to an overview of virtualization — its history, an analysis of the techniques used over the years, and a survey of Linux virtualization projects. From the article: "Virtualization is the new big thing, if 'new' can include something over four decades old. It has been used historically in a number of contexts, but a primary focus now is in the virtualization of servers and operating systems. Much like Linux, virtualization provides many options for performance, portability, and flexibility."

Comments

Re:Thanks, IndioMan & kdawson

[moco]

Since I'm not a server admin, I've always wondered about the use and importance of this "virtualization" I've been hearing so much about .

For the home user virtualization can be used as a separate PC to surf the net without fear of malware, when you are done surfing just restore the VM to the "clean" state, think "your pr0n browsing PC". You can also use it to test software before contaminating your host PC with stuff you decide not to keep. I visualize it as a sandbox to play in before messing up with the "real" system.

Check the vmware player appliances, there are lots of good ideas there, many of them are for business use but there are several that can be used at home.

For the developer / tester virtualization provides a set of target operating systems to test / debug the software on without need of having the actual physical hardware.

Of course, in the data center it is the next big thing, too many advantages to list here.