With virtualization, you can interact with any hardware resource with more flexibility. Physical servers consume power, take up storage space, and require maintenance. Access to them is often limited by physical proximity and network design. Virtualization removes all of these limitations by abstracting the functionality of physical hardware into software. You can control, maintain, and use your hardware infrastructure as a web-based application.
An example of virtualization
Consider a company that needs servers to perform three functions:
Secure storage of corporate email;
Running client applications;
Running internal business applications.
Each of these functions has different configuration requirements.
Email applications require large amounts of storage and a Windows operating system.
Client applications require a Linux operating system and high processing power to handle high volumes of website traffic.
Internal business applications require iOS and large amounts of internal memory (RAM).
To meet these requirements, the company installs three different dedicated physical servers for each application.
The company has to make a large initial investment and perform ongoing maintenance and upgrades one machine at a time. In addition, the company cannot optimize its computing power. It pays 100% of the cost of maintaining the servers, but uses only a fraction of their storage and processing power.
Efficient use of hardware
With virtualization, the company creates three digital servers or virtual machines on a single physical server. It defines the operating system requirements for the virtual machines and can use them as physical servers. However, the company now has less hardware and fewer associated costs.
Infrastructure as a Service
A company can go one step further and use cloud instances or virtual machines from cloud computing providers such as AWS. AWS manages all the underlying hardware, and the company can request server resources with different configurations. All applications run on these virtual servers, and users don’t notice any difference. Server management also becomes easier for the company’s IT teams.