What is virtualization in cloud computing?

Virtualization in cloud computing is the technology that allows you to create multiple virtual resources such as servers, storage, and network in cloud. This enables the efficient use of resources and allows for flexible allocation of computing resources to different users or applications on demand. Virtualization is a key technology underlying the Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) model of cloud computing, which provides virtualized computing, storage, and network resources to users. You can set up access control over the resources to control them.

Read our blog to understand the difference between virtualization and cloud computing.

Virtualization essentially creates virtual instances of physical resources such as servers, storage devices, and networks. Here are some types of virtualizations:

• Hardware Virtualization : The virtual machine software or virtual machine manager (VMM) is directly installed on the hardware system. This is done for server platforms, as controlling virtual machines is easier than controlling a physical server.
• Operating System Virtualization : The VMM is installed on the host operating system instead of directly on the hardware system. This is used for testing applications on different platforms of OS.
• Server Virtualization : The VMM is directly installed on the server system. A single physical server can be divided into multiple servers on a demand basis and for balancing the load.
• Storage Virtualization : This is the process of grouping the physical storage from multiple network storage devices so that it looks like a single storage device. This is done for backup and recovery purposes.

Virtualization plays a crucial role in cloud computing. It allows multiple users to share a single physical instance of a resource or an application. This technique increases the utilization and flexibility of hardware, leading to cost-effectiveness and energy savings.