Virtualization
Fundamentals
The Technology Behind Cloud Computing
Cloud Computing Course | 1915416
Ola A. Shalbak
What We'll Cover Today
What is Virtualization? Virtual Machines vs Containers
01 05
Core concept and why it matters VMs and Docker compared
History & Evolution Virtualization in Azure
02 06
From mainframes to the cloud era Azure Hyper-V and VM internals
How a Hypervisor Works Benefits & Challenges
03 07
Type 1 vs Type 2 hypervisors Why it matters for cloud computing
Types of Virtualization
04
Server, storage, network, desktop
What is Virtualization?
Virtualization is the process of creating a software-based (virtual) representation of physical resources — including
servers, storage, and networks. It allows one physical machine to run multiple isolated virtual environments
simultaneously.
❌ Before Virtualization ✅ After Virtualization
✗ 1 application per physical server ✔ Multiple VMs on one physical server
✗ Servers running at 5–15% CPU utilization ✔ Server utilization jumps to 70–80%
✗ Huge hardware and energy costs ✔ Drastically lower hardware costs
✗ Slow provisioning — days or weeks ✔ Provision new VMs in minutes
✗ No fault isolation between apps ✔ Full isolation — failure stays contained
History & Evolution of Virtualization
1990s 2008 Today
x86 Virtualization Microsoft Hyper-V Cloud-Native Era
VMware pioneers Virtualization is invisible
Microsoft releases Hyper-V
virtualization on commodity infrastructure. Billions of
with Windows Server 2008.
x86 hardware. Made VMs run daily across
Now powers all Azure VMs
enterprise-grade hyperscale clouds
globally.
virtualization affordable. worldwide.
1960s 2003 2013
IBM Mainframes Xen Hypervisor Docker & Containers
IBM CP/CMS introduced Open-source Xen project Docker popularizes OS-level
time-sharing on mainframes enables paravirtualization. virtualization (containers).
— the first virtual machines Becomes the foundation for Lightweight alternative to
to partition hardware early Amazon EC2 and many full VMs for application
resources. clouds. isolation.
How a Hypervisor Works
Type 1 — Bare Metal (Native) Type 2 — Hosted
VM 1 VM 2 VM 3 VM 1 VM 2 VM 3
(App A) (App B) (App C) (App A) (App B) (App C)
Hypervisor (e.g. Hyper-V, ESXi, Xen) Hypervisor App (e.g. VirtualBox, VMware Workstation)
Physical Hardware Host OS (Windows / Linux / macOS)
Physical Hardware
✔ Runs directly on hardware
✔ High performance & security
✔ Used in: Azure, AWS, VMware vSphere ✔ Runs on top of a host OS
✔ Easy to set up — great for dev/test
✔ Used in: VirtualBox, VMware Workstation
Types of Virtualization
️ ️ 🌐
Server Virtualization Storage Virtualization Network Virtualization
Combines hardware and software network
Multiple virtual servers on one physical machine. Pools physical storage from multiple devices into a
resources into a single software-based network
The most common type — powers cloud IaaS. single virtual storage unit. Simplifies management.
(SDN, VLANs, VNets).
️ 📦 📂
Desktop Virtualization Application Virtualization Data Virtualization
Abstracts data from its physical location, letting
Run desktop OS instances on a server (VDI). Users Packages apps in isolated containers so they run
apps query data without knowing where it actually
access their desktop remotely from any device. independently of the underlying OS (e.g. App-V).
lives.
Virtual Machines vs Containers
️ Virtual Machine 📦 Containers (Docker)
App A App B App A App B App C
Bins/Libs Bins/Libs Bins/Libs Bins/Libs Bins/Libs
Guest OS Guest OS Container Runtime (Docker Engine)
Hypervisor Host OS
Physical Hardware Physical Hardware
Feature VM Container
Startup Time Minutes Seconds
Size GBs MBs
Isolation Strong Process-level
Best For Full OS control Microservices
Virtualization in Azure — Hyper-V Internals
Your Azure VMs (Windows Server / Ubuntu / Red Hat…) ⚡ Live Migration
Azure moves VMs between physical hosts with
zero downtime for maintenance.
Azure Fabric Controller (orchestration & scheduling)
🔒 VM Isolation
Each VM has its own virtual CPU, memory, and disk
Microsoft Hyper-V Hypervisor (Type 1) — fully isolated from neighbors.
📏 Scale Sets
Azure Physical Server Hardware (custom silicon + NVMe + RDMA networking) Hyper-V supports VM Scale Sets — automatically
launch identical VMs as load increases.
️ Shielded VMs
Encrypted VMs protected from the host OS and
cloud admins using vTPM and BitLocker.
Azure runs on a customized version of Hyper-V, optimized for hyperscale with thousands of physical hosts per datacenter.
Benefits & Challenges of Virtualization
✅ Benefits ⚠️ Challenges
💰 Cost Savings ⚙️ Management Overhead
Reduce physical server count by 10:1 or more. Lower hardware, power, and
More VMs = more to patch, monitor, and secure. Requires VM
cooling costs.
lifecycle management tools.
⚡ Speed
Provision new servers in minutes instead of days — critical for agile 📊 Resource Contention
development.
VMs sharing a host can compete for CPU/memory — the 'noisy
neighbor' problem.
♻️ Disaster Recovery
Snapshot and replicate VMs instantly. Restore failed systems in minutes.
🔐 Security Surface
Hypervisor vulnerabilities can affect all VMs. VM escape attacks
🔒 Isolation are a known threat.
VMs are sandboxed — a crash or breach in one VM doesn't affect others.
💸 Licensing Complexity
📈 Scalability Each VM may require OS licenses. Managing compliance across
hundreds of VMs is complex.
Add or remove virtual resources dynamically based on workload demand.
Key Takeaways
Virtualization = abstraction of physical hardware
️ Multiple isolated environments run on a single physical machine
Hypervisors are the core enabler
⚙️ Type 1 (bare metal) powers clouds; Type 2 is used for local dev/test
Containers complement VMs
📦 Lighter and faster but less isolated — both are used in modern clouds
Azure runs on Hyper-V
🔵 All Azure VMs are Hyper-V guests with live migration and VM isolation
Virtualization is the foundation of cloud computing
🌍 Without it, IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS as we know them would not exist
Next: Module 2 — Cloud Deployment Models (Public, Private & Hybrid Cloud)