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Virtualization Technology
By James McCaffrey
A basic working knowledge of virtualization has become a requirement for most job positions at technology companies like Microsoft and Google. Virtualization is a general term, not a specific product. The best way to understand virtualization is by looking at a picture. The image shows virtualization in action, using a product called Microsoft Virtual PC 2007. The real, physical machine (called the "host" machine in virtualization lingo) is running Windows Vista and has a blue-green background. There are two virtual machines (called "guests") running. The virtual machine in the back is running Windows Server 2003. The virtual machine in the foreground is running SuSE Linux and you can see a Linux-based Web browser named Konqueror being used to view a blog site.
Virtualization increases efficiency. Instead of having to go out and buy separate machines, an engineer can simply create virtual machines. Each virtual machine is completely encapsulated in a file so virtual machines can be saved and called when needed. Virtualization technology has two main uses. First, engineers can use virtualization for temporary things like testing if new software will work on different computer configurations. Second, IT engineers can actually run multiple servers full time on a single physical machine -- the idea is that most computers spend a lot of time not actually doing anything and virtualization takes advantage of this unused time.
Learning how to use virtualization technologies, as shown in the attached screenshot, is relatively easy -- it generally takes most engineers less than one day to master a product like Virtual PC 2007. However, developing virtualization technology products like Virtual PC 2007 is very difficult. These developers need to be very strong with C/C++, COM, operating systems, and networking.
There are many different virtualization products on the market. A company called VMware is a big player in the market, and companies such as IBM and Oracle also have virtualization products. Apart from Virtual PC 2007, Microsoft has products named Virtual Server 2005 and Hyper-V. Virtual Server 2005 is similar to Virtual PC 2007. Virtual Server 2005 uses a Web-based management interface and is a bit trickier to use than Virtual PC 2007, but has more features. In general, Virtual PC 2007 is intended to run on and host desktop OSes like Windows XP and Windows 2000, while Virtual Server 2005 is intended to run on and host server OSes such as Windows Server 2003. However, you can combine most combinations of host and guest OSes on both Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual Server 2005. Hyper-V is intended to be a Windows Server 2008 based successor to Virtual Server 2005.
Volt Technical Education (www.vteOnline.com) offers training classes on Virtual PC 2007 and Virtual Server 2005. The next classes on these technologies will be scheduled in April and May. Constantly upgrading your personal skill set is a key to your career growth and success.
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