Cloud Computing vs Virtualization Part 3

Today in my Part 3 of Cloud Computing, lets go through a bit of Cloud Computing vs Virtualization.

As we already know, Cloud Computing is a model for providing or purchasing computing services.

Cloud Computing

According to National Institute of Standards and Technology(NIST) Cloud computing is a model for enabling convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction.

What is Virtualization?

Simply put, virtualization is a software that creates a separation between the physical infrastructure and the applications that run on it. Essentially, it is a software layer that allows companies to consolidate all their servers into a single piece of hardware on which multiple applications run. In addition, virtualization makes it possible to run many applications requiring different operating systems on the same server.

The goal of virtualization is to make it easier to manage workloads and to make any software or application more scalable. The most common type of virtualization is the one that happens at the operating system level, which is nothing but running multiple operating systems on the same piece of hardware. Generally speaking, when a different operating system is placed on top of the primary OS, it’s called a virtual machine. However, it’s not just restricted to operating systems, as virtualization can be applied to different layers ,too, such as desktop, storage, network, server, and file system.

Some advantages that virtualization offers:

  • Ideal for any size: Businesses of all sizes can use virtualization.
  • Reduced physical redundancy: In a non-virtualized environment, you’ll have to use more servers that require higher power consumption. In turn, it leads to physical infrastructure redundancy. Virtualization can reduce the problems that come with this physical redundancy.
  • Decreased downtime: Virtualization reduces your downtime greatly, as changes can be made to servers without causing disruptions.
  • Privacy: Organizations can customize existing virtual infrastructure to meet their security requirements.

These advantages are critical for the operations of some companies, and for them virtualization may be the right choice.

That’s all for now… wait for my Part 4 – Some Examples of Cloud Computing….

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