Introduction to Virtualization

In the IT world there are two technologies that can enhance the benefits of IT and reduce costs significantly, the centralized computing and virtualization.
Centralized Computing is a lot I discussed in my articles, you can the search keyword "LTSP" and will get the explanations and guides implementation.
Regarding virtualization I will discuss briefly in this post.
Virtualization is a method to make something out of a physical dependence. Example; virtual machine is a computer, which was really only in the form of a file on your hard disk. With virtualization, a computer (physically) can run many virtual computers while at the same time.
Various advantages of virtualization:

   1. The cost savings: in a server computer I've run 4 virtual machines at once.
      1 pc running Windows OS as the Oracle database server, one OS to run Solaris 8, one running OS Suse Linux Enterprise, and another Windows 2000 server OS. Thus, instead of buying four pieces of physical servers, I just bought a fruit only.
      Also, VMware Server can now also be accessed remotely. So, we no longer need to buy a monitor / keyboard / mouse for each server - the server can be headless, and we access it remotely.
   2. Cheap: VMware Server is now provided free of charge, at no cost. Likewise with many other virtualization solutions, VirtualPC, QEMU, Xen, and others.
   Three. Ease of maintenance: Usually, for the maintenance of a server, we need to be at the location of the server, and a monitor / keyboard / mouse for each server. VMware Server can now be accessed remotely. So now from our own computers, we can access tens of servers at the same time in other parts of the world even at the same time.
   4. Reliability: The more physical servers means the more likely the damage occurs. If the number of physical servers is reduced, so our infrastructure will become more reliable.
   5. Ease of backup: Usually we can not backup a server intact, because if one day restore the backups are on different computer hardware, then Windows will fail boot normally. Unfortunately, backups per services (database, fileserver, etc.), making the backup process becomes more complicated, and the process is also more time-consuming restorenya.

      Cons with the virtual machine, where all the same configuration. Example; all virtual machines in VMware will always get a VGA card VMware, PCnet network card, etc..
      Therefore, backupnya so very easy. Just copy the virtual machine (usually a few files) to the backup.
      Restorenya process is still more remarkable - a very easy and fast. Simply install VMware on the other computer, and copy the virtual machine to machine - presto, all back to normal.
Thus the various advantages of virtualization. As you can see, the advantages are many and significant.
Technologies previously only available on mainframe computers (server class) is now available for all of us, at no cost as well. Do not get lost for personal use to your advantage.