Introduction to virtualization
Virtualization is the process of creating a software-based or virtual version of something whether that be compute, storage, networking, servers, or applications.
The thing that makes virtualization feasible is called a hypervisor, and what a hypervisor is? It is a simple piece of software that runs above the physical server or host.
There are a couple of different hypervisors are there, and the hypervisor essentially pools the resources from the physical server and allocate them to your virtual environments.
There are two main types of hypervisors are there, they are
- Type -1
- Type-2
Type-1 Hypervisor
A Type-1 hypervisor is a hypervisor that is installed directly on top of the physical server. They are also called a bare-metal hypervisor, these are the most frequently used hypervisors they are most secure, and they lower the latency and these are the ones we can easily find in the markets.
Examples: VMWARE, ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, Open source KVM.
Type-2 Hypervisor
In A Type-2 Hypervisor, there is a layer of host OS that sits between the physical server and the hypervisor, so by this nature, these are also called Hosted Hypervisors, these are a lot less frequent and these are mostly used for end-user virtualization. These are less frequent and containing higher latency compared to Type-1 Hypervisors
Example: Oracle Virtualbox, VMWare Workstation.
Once a hypervisor is installed you can build virtual environments or virtual machines. The hypervisor manages the resources that are allocated to these virtual environments from the physical server.
Benefits of virtualization
- Cost savings
- agility and speed
- Lowers your downtime
- Increased efficiency and multitasking
- Manageability, sustainability, availability, and security.
