VIRTUAL MACHINES
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Virtual Machine
A Virtual Machine is a software that
creates a virtualized environment between
the computer platform and the end user in
which the end user can operate software.
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Description
A virtual machine provides an interface
identical to the underlying bare hardware.
The operating system creates the illusion of
multiple processes, each executing on its
own processor with its own (virtual)
memory.
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Virtualization
Virtualization is an abstraction layer that
decouples the physical hardware from the
operating system to deliver greater IT
resource utilization and flexibility.
It allows multiple virtual machines, with
heterogeneous operating systems to run in
isolation, side-by-side on the same physical
machine.
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Virtualization contd..
Each virtual machine has its own set of
virtual hardware (e.g., RAM, CPU, NIC,
etc.) upon which an operating system and
applications are loaded.
The operating system creates the illusion
of multiple processes, each executing on
its own processor with its own (virtual)
memory.
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History
Virtualization was first introduced in the
1960s to allow partitioning of large,
mainframe hardware.
In the 1990s, researchers began to see how
virtualization could solve some of the
problems associated with the proliferation of
less expensive hardware, including
underutilization, escalating management
costs and vulnerability.
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Virtual Machine Monitor
The host software that provides virtualization
is often referred to as a virtual machine
monitor (VMM) or hypervisor.
The VMM gives each virtual machine an
illusion of a complete computer to itself.
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Architecture
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Features
Each virtual machine has its own set of
virtual hardware (e.g., RAM, CPU, NIC, etc.)
upon which an operating system and
applications are loaded.
The operating system sees a consistent,
normalized set of hardware regardless of the
actual physical hardware components.
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Benefits
1. Partitioning
- Multiple applications and operating
systems can be supported within a single
physical system.
- There is no overlap amongst memory
as each Virtual Memory has its own memory
space.
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Benefits
[Link]
-Virtual machines are completely
isolated from the host machine and other
virtual machines. If a virtual machine
crashes, all others are unaffected.
-Data does not leak across virtual
machines.
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