The Transforming Power of Virtualization

Virtualization is a very useful tool. Unfortunately, many mistakenly equate virtual machine technology with virtualization itself. In reality, virtualization is a well-established group of technologies with a long track record of success. Using them together is where the real benefits may be found.

Virtualization - from mainframes to industry standard systems

Virtualization is a very useful tool that allows system resources to be utilized in new ways. Unfortunately, many people mistakenly equate virtual machine technology, technology that can encapsulate all of the software that runs on a physical system and allows that capsule to run along side of others on a single host system, with virtualization itself. In reality, virtualization is a well-established group of technologies with a long track record of success in data centers around the world. Suppliers, such as HP, IBM, Intel, and Oracle, have been involved with all levels of virtualization technology for a very long time. IBM, for example has been offering virtualization technology since the late 1960s.

The narrow view of virtualization as being merely virtual machine software used to support virtual desktops and virtual servers has begun to get in the way of pushing the use of this set of technologies forward. I believe it is about time to think of virtualization much more broadly. To be truly efficient, a workload is likely to need access, application, processing, network, and storage virtualization. Here is the complete story 

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