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| From Peter Bauert |
While all existing virtualization applications have been developed through one underlying concept, not all virtualization approaches are the same. At present, the three main approaches are hardware virtualization, paravirtualization, and operating system (OS) virtualization.
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| From Peter Bauert |
Hardware Virtualization
These are products designed to run multiple operating systems on a single server. The technology recreates the work of server hardware as well as the OS vendors, server hardware resources, and server users’ resources and integrates them into the virtual environment. Parallels is among the leading vendors of hardware virtualization technology.Paravirtualization
A Xen open source project, paravirtualization is comparable to the hardware virtualization as it is similarly designed to enable a server to run multiple OSs.OS Virtualization
Peter Bauert identifies Parallel’s Virtuozzo and Sun’s Solaris Containers as the leading vendors utilizing this approach. Unlike the other two technologies, OS virtualization does not support multiple OSs on a single server. Instead, it is designed primarily to merge multiple virtual servers by creating isolated partitions on a single server and OS.The ability of both hardware virtualization and paravirtualization to run different OSs side by side on a single server at the same time gives them an edge. However, this function alone results in high overhead and inefficiencies such as reduction in consolidation ratio and a decrease in response time.
Parallels’ Virtuozzo remains to be the greenest virtualization option not only because of reduced overhead and increased efficiency. In addition, it enables more virtual applications to reside on one server thereby decreasing the number of physical servers required to operate.
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| From Peter Bauert |
Learn more about OS virtualization at www.parallels.com.
