Server Virtualization

You are a Windows 7 administrator for Contoso, a very large international pharmaceutical company. The network has 25 servers running Windows Server 2000, Server 2003, and SuSe Linux. When your CIO is performing brainstorming with you and its employees, you said you have heard about virtualization. My boss studies these concepts to you, answers him and tells you to make suggestions in two weeks.

In server virtualization, one physical server appears as multiple servers. Microsoft has two products for virtual servers. Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2 runs on Windows Server 2003. The current product is Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V. It will only work with 64-bit versions of Windows Server 2008. Both products are considered virtual hypervisors and are terms developed by IBM. A hypervisor is a platform that supports multiple operating systems running on a single physical computer. Microsoft Virtual Server is considered a Type 2 hypervisor. The Type 2 hypervisor operates on the host operating system. Hyper-V is also called Type 1 hypervisor, also called "bare metal" hypervisor. The Type 1 hypervisor operates directly on the host's physical hardware ("bare metal").

Share hardware and software resources with other virtual servers. It exists only in proprietary software called hypervisor. The hypervisor presents virtual hardware to the server as if it were actual physical hardware. Server virtualization enables a more efficient infrastructure. Most Internet architectures are based on a client-server model. High level root name servers, DNS, and routers direct traffic on the Internet. Millions of servers are connected to the Internet and are running continuously all over the world and almost all actions ordinary Internet users do need one or more interactions with one or more servers . Some exceptions that do not use a dedicated server, such as peer-to-peer file sharing, phone implementation (for example, Skype before Microsoft).

In the field of information technology, server virtualization is still a "hot topic". Several companies are still seen as new technologies that provide different approaches to server virtualization. There are three ways to create a virtual server: full virtualization, paravirtualization, and operating system level virtualization. Among all three variants, there are several common features. A physical server is always called a host. The virtual server is called the guest virtual machine. The virtual server behaves as if it were a physical machine. However, in each of the various ways, various methods are used to assign physical server resources to virtual server requirements.