Virtualization in Cloud Computing

Virtualization is technology that you can use to create virtual representations of servers, storage, networks, and other physical machines. Virtual software mimics the functions of physical hardware to run multiple virtual machines simultaneously on a single physical machine. Businesses use virtualization to use their hardware resources efficiently and get greater returns from their investment. It also powers cloud computing services that help organizations manage infrastructure more efficiently.

By using virtualization, you can interact with any hardware resource with greater flexibility. Physical servers consume electricity, take up storage space, and need maintenance. You are often limited by physical proximity and network design if you want to access them. Virtualization removes all these limitations by abstracting physical hardware functionality into software. You can manage, maintain, and use your hardware infrastructure like an application on the web.

Consider a company that needs servers for three functions:

• Store business email securely
• Run a customer-facing application
• Run internal business applications

Each of these functions has different configuration requirements: 

1. The email application requires more storage capacity and a Windows operating system.
2. The customer-facing application requires a Linux operating system and high processing power to handle large volumes of website traffic.
3. The internal business application requires iOS and more internal memory (RAM).

To meet these requirements, the company sets up three different dedicated physical servers for each application. The company must make a high initial investment and perform ongoing maintenance and upgrades for one machine at a time. The company also cannot optimize its computing capacity. It pays 100% of the servers’ maintenance costs but uses only a fraction of their storage and processing capacities.

With virtualization, the company creates three digital servers, or virtual machines, on a single physical server. It specifies the operating system requirements for the virtual machines and can use them like the physical servers. However, the company now has less hardware and fewer related expenses.

The company can go one step further and use a cloud instance or virtual machine from a cloud computing provider such as AWS. AWS manages all the underlying hardware, and the company can request server resources with varying configurations. All the applications run on these virtual servers without the users noticing any difference. Server management also becomes easier for the company’s IT team.

Cloud computing is any application, database, storage, or networking service that lives online and is accessed through the internet. There are three main types of cloud computing services: software as a service, infrastructure as a service, and platform as a service.

Today cloud computing is something that nearly everyone uses. Whenever you use any type of online service, including TV streaming, photo backup storage, and social media apps, you’re using a form of cloud computing. At the enterprise level, cloud computing services can include cloud infrastructure, cloud-based applications, such as ERP, and cloud-based disaster recovery and backup.

Virtualization can be part of the cloud, but cloud computing itself is an entire infrastructure built around supporting online access to applications, services, and data. As long as a provider is enabling access to resources, compute power, and/or applications through an online pathway, they’re using cloud computing. This could be as simple as a single server that offers a custom application to a small group, such as a classroom or a group of coworkers. On a much larger scale, a platform service such as Zoom requires functions, data, and redundancy to be distributed across a large number of servers that work together.

Cloud computing offers many benefits, including the following:

• Scalability: With cloud services, organizations can add users by simply purchasing more licenses without having to worry about purchasing or updating individual systems and resources.
• Operational efficiency: Cloud software is updated by the provider, so every time it’s accessed, the user runs the latest version. This saves on IT costs and resources by removing the need to deploy updates or patches.
• Access: Many cloud computing services are accessible via a web browser or a mobile app, with individual user data stored with the account rather than locally. This enables anywhere, anytime access that’s not tied to a single device.
• Security: User data stored in the cloud is considered more secure compared to data stored locally. This is because cloud providers build their businesses around ensuring data is secure and available, whereas individual IT departments must work within allocated budgets to combat the latest risk or threat.

Clouds are complete IT environments that abstract, combine, and share resources across a network. Cloud computing involves running workloads within clouds. While cloud computing is an action, clouds are the environments where applications run.

Cloud infrastructure is physically off-premises and may include virtualization, or container software you can use to pool and share resources. Other common forms of cloud computing are Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Desktop as a Service (DaaS). Usually, there is an OS at the base of cloud computing.

Cloud computing can use virtualization for many different purposes, from supporting simulated applications on different operating systems to creating silos between resources to maximize efficiency. While it’s possible to deploy clouds without virtualization, virtualization is a critical tool used to support many cloud platforms, especially those built for a larger audience.