<< Prev. Page: Xen Configuration Files
Virtualization is thought to have begun back in the 1960s, when IBM tried to further partition mainframe computers in order to increase the utilization of the C.P.U, according to VMware’s official website.
An increase in C.P.U utilization is among one of the reasons why virtualization is important in the IT industry. Some of the other advantages of virtualization are: increased utilization of space and allowing the standardization of server builds. With increased CPU utilization, a number of servers can run on the same machine, this way, more work is done by the CPU. As opposed to receiving all the web traffic on a single machine, while SMTP traffic is on another machine and FTP traffic on another machine, you can receive all this traffic on a single machine thus increasing CPU utilization. It is, however, important to make sure that you some discretion must be used when placing a number of machines on a single host machine since if done wrong; it could cause a decrease in the performance of the C.P.U. Since the CPU utilization that virtualization offers affect space utilization indirectly, fewer physical machines are used in virtualization, thus less space is used. Last but not least, virtualization works easily with replication software used for the concepts of cloning, snapshots, and ghosting among others. This helps the system administrator to create images of any given operating system on the network. Creation of custom images gives the system administrator a chance to create a standardized server build. This saves a lot of time when it comes to configuring additional servers.
The biggest disadvantage of virtualization is the fact that having an organization’s servers on a single physical machine since it would be very easy to bypass the security of the network server’s infrastructure. It would be a very big risk to an organization of several servers were hacked which is why it is disadvantageous to have a Web server, SMTP server, and any other kind of server are all on the same machine.
The IDS (intrusion detection system) is a common security practice when it comes to multiple network interfaces in any network. In a virtualized environment, however, the IDS is not able to work properly since intrusion detection systems can only monitor physical network interfaces. Basically, the IDS works very well when monitoring egress and ingress traffic on a physical network interface, but when it comes to traffic that moves between virtual servers, the intrusion detection system does not operate properly.
For IT, virtualization is a must since it is needed for companies to stay technologically afloat, which calls for higher performance and higher capacity. Most organizations will want to do more with less which is why which is why virtualization is being used by almost all companies. Unless a new technological innovation is created, virtualization will remain to be a very important component in any reputable IT network.
Linux for Virtual Machines
For virtual machines, Linux is the best Operating System. Virtual machines replicate the hardware conditions on a device limited only by the system's different components. For example, a four-core CPU processor cannot be expected on two cores.
Distro for Virtual Machines
All 64-bit and 32-bit versions of Linux distributions work on virtual machines except Raspberry Pi and other ARM architecture. Try QEMU for ARM Linux environment on Windows machine. Choose the distro that is regularly updated using security patches.