Personal VirtualizationPersonal VirtualizationEvolutionary/Revolutionary Advances in ComputingEvolutionary/Revolutionary Advances in Computing

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

What is Virtualization?

Virtualization is technology that abstracts software from hardware, allowing operating systems to run without hardware-specific drivers and instructions.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

How It Works

Virtualization is done by a Hypervisor - a streamlined communication layer that sits between the hardware and the operating system, providing connectivity to devices and virtualization management features.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Why Virtualize?

A virtualized computer is one file, which can be easily backed up, copied and moved.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Why Virtualize?

Backups can be quickly restored to different hardware when a system fails.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Why Virtualize?

Multiple virtual computers, running a variety of operating systems and applications, can run on one system.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Why Virtualize?

To conserve energy by reducing and maximizing power consumption.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Why Virtualize?

To save money by eliminating the expense of maintaining multiple PCs.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Why Virtualize?

To provide instant testing environments.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Why Virtualize?

So you can run that handful of Windows apps that you need while primarily using a Mac or Linux OS.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Why Virtualize?

So you can test the web site you’re developing in all browsers on all platforms.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Why Virtualize?

To take advantage of pre-configured application servers that are available as plug and play, virtualized downloads.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Cloud Computing

Cloud services (like Amazon’s EC2/AWS) can host Virtual Machines (VMs), allowing you to work from home or your office on the same virtual PC.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Limitations

Currently, Macs can’t be (easily) virtualized on other platforms. For Mac/Windows/Linux on one box, the box has to be a Mac.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Limitations

This is all still pretty new. Some applications don’t perform well in virtualized environments.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Limitations

Smaller vendors might resist supporting virtualized applications; large vendors, for the most part, won’t.

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Products

VMWare View (Windows),VMWare Fusion (Mac)

Parallels (Mac)

Xen or KVM (Linux, open source)

VirtualBox (All, open source)

Peter Campbell, Techcafeteria August, 2008

Resources

Techsoup’s Greentech Program

Techcafeteria Blog

Vendor pages

Delicious: peterscampbell/virtualization+nten