It’s relatively easy to understand how server virtualization works. Setting up virtualized servers works as follows:
The first step is to choose a server for your virtualization project. Usually this will be a single dedicated server that you would like to use resources more effectively and process workloads better. Next, you’ll need to do a review of the memory, processors and hard drives being used, so you can determine how much capacity is available for one or more virtual machines. That way you can evaluate how many virtual instances you’ll have and how much computing power they can offer.
The virtualization itself is usually managed using a special hypervisor software like Hyper-V by Microsoft, vSphere by VMware, or PlateSpin Migrate. A hypervisor will take care of the partitioning of your existing hardware and software. There are two types of hypervisors:
- Type 1: This type works directly on the server as a bare metal hypervisor (for virtual machines, for example).
- Type 2: This type works on the software level with the host operating system (usually best suited for test environments).
Virtualization and partitioning can be used to create virtual applications, storage, resources, servers and other virtual networks.