The History Of The Defining Virtualization

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

Virtualization (Andi Mann, 2010) is a technology that hides hardware, servers, switches, storage, etc from the systems, applications, services, and people who use these components. Mann says, it could mean, for example, that multiple operating environments can all run on one server (the consolidation), that one system can be run on multiple servers (cluster or grid), or even that it services can be delivered from offsite, hosting services (cloud computing). In all these cases, Mann says that the physical hardware and its location are rendered irrelevant by virtualization, which hides this information from the operating systems, applications, and end users. Virtualization solves the problem by enabling several operating systems and applications to run on one physical server or "host." Each self-contained "virtual machine" is isolated from the others, and uses as much of the host’s computing resources as it requires

Virtualization wraps the operating system virtualization and workload into one application, which can be easily deployed or moved in the environment, it allows data centers to better hardware utilization by multiple applications on a single piece of hardware without application of conflict issues, resulting in more applications to share operating systems. (David Lynch, 2010)

In computing, virtualization is the creation of a virtual rather than actual version of something, such as a hardware platform, operating system (OS), storage device, or network resources. Virtualization (Gartner, 2012) is the abstraction of IT resources that masks the physical nature and boundaries of those resources from resource users. an IT resource can be a server, a client, storage, networks, applications or OSs. Essentially, any IT building block can potentially be abstracted from resource users.

Amit Singh (2004) virtualization is a framework or methodology of dividing the resources of a computer into multiple execution environments, by applying one or more concepts or technologies such as hardware and software partitioning, time-sharing, partial or complete machine simulation, emulation, quality of service, and many others.

Different experts & Organizations come up with different definitions and ideas about virtualization. Some say it in a complex way and others in a normal way but it is not just to run multiple operating systems on one machine or some could think only server consolidation is virtualization, but it has more deeper things like application Virtualization, Network Virtualization, hardware virtualization and storage virtualization which is beneficial from different aspects to an organization.

The History

If we go on to the roots of virtualization many people think it was found by VMware which is currently the leading cloud and Virtualization Company, but the real fact virtualization was founded by Jim Rymarczyk who worked for IBM in mid 60’s, but now the technology is pioneered by VMware. ‘In august 2007, virtualizations leading company, VMware, went public with world most highly anticipated IPO.’ Berbard G. (2008) Virtualization for dummies.US: Willey Publishing.

Till now VMware is dominating the Virtualization industry. Virtualization was earlier a two horse race where Citrix was trying to catch the market competing with VMware but now Microsoft is giving away Hyper-V with windows server 2008 and companies like IBM, HP, and Red hat are also holding a place in the virtualization industry. Moore’s law is a theory that predicts the exponential improvement in computer hardware over a given period of time. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon E. Moore predicted that computer chips will double in power every year. Now because of this virtualization has become easy to deploy with all the powerful hardware that are manufactured in the current IT world.

It has a length of history, going back to the work from IBM in the 1960s and the beginning of the 1970’s.So, what has changed about the technology, which has been in 40 years? If virtualization could go back and change anything about his life, it turns out that it would be a lot of change, never wanted to be a proprietary virtualization technology is limited to the selection of the contractor and costly hardware virtualization space, what you really wanted was free and open to anyone who wanted to use, and the ability to run on commodity X 86 hardware.

If we go on deeper on its history Virtualization has its roots in the Compatible Time-Sharing System (CTSS), written at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the mid-1960s. CTSS was among the first operating systems to share a single computer among multiple interactive users. Previously, computers ran in batch mode, and programmers often had to wait for dedicated time periods to use the one-and-only computer. The CTSS project, under the direction of Professor Fernando Corbató, was the first to time-slice a single computer between interactive users at terminals. CTSS introduced architectural features that would be central to subsequent virtualization environments—namely, address relocation to permit separate address spaces for each user, preemptive multitasking of user processes, and isolation of physical traps, devices, and interrupts from user processes. In addition, it pro-vided a virtualized form of the FORTRAN batch environment typically run on that processor. This was proved by Jeff victor ET all (2010)

So now the technology is back in track, but primarily for the first-order benefit, namely server consolidation," many organizations are now realizing the second order benefit which is agility, manageability, availability and cost beneficiary. Because of the availability and manageability even small businesses tend to implement virtualization to their IT infrastructure. (Symond Cosby 2009)

Different types and kinds of virtualization

If we take a look at different types of virtualization, Corey Janssen (2010) says Hardware virtualization involves embedding virtual machine software into the hardware component of a server. The software used is known by several different names, although hypervisor and virtual machine monitor are the most common.

According to Margaret rouse (2006) Storage Virtualization is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device that is managed from a central console. Storage virtualization is commonly used in a storage area network (SAN). The management of storage devices can be tedious and time-consuming. Storage virtualization helps the storage administrator perform the tasks of backup, archiving, and recovery more easily, and in less time, by disguising the actual complexity of the SAN.

Patricia Pickett (2008) Server virtualization is the idea of taking a physical server and, with the help of virtualization software, partitioning the server, or dividing it up, so that it appears as several "virtual servers," each of which can run their own copy of an operating system.

Network virtualization is a method of combining the available resources in a network by splitting up the available bandwidth into channels, each of which is independent from the others, and each of which can be assigned (or reassigned) to a particular server or device in real time. Each channel is independently secured. Every subscriber has shared access to all the resources on the network from a single computer. Margaret Rouse (2006)

Full virtualization is a process where an entire computer system is made into a software construct. This construct acts like the original hardware in every way. Software that is designed for the hardware will install on the construct as though it was the actual computer and then run with little to no slowdown. Using full virtualization has several uses, such as testing software in a virtual environment or expanding the usefulness of a single computer or server through virtual operating systems. While partial virtualization is very common, full virtualization is relatively rare.

According to Ronald Mc Carty (2010) Para virtualization allows multiple operating systems to run on hardware at the same time by making more efficient use of system resources, such as processors and memory, through effective resource sharing. Unlike full virtualization where a whole system is emulated (BIOS, disk, processor, NIC, etc.), the para virtualization’s management module (a hypervisor or virtual machine monitor) operates with an operating system that has been modified to work in a virtual machine.

Most applications running on a server can easily share a machine with others, if they could be isolated and secured. Further, in most situations, different operating systems are not required on the same server, merely multiple instances of a single operating system. OS-level virtualization systems have been designed to provide the required isolation.

We can see that there are different types of virtualization which can provide a massive advantage for organization from different aspects

Overview of its benefits

If we move on to the benefits of virtualization The video (Tom Bittman,2010) illustrates After Virtualization most of the companies enables speed its much faster to deploy virtual resources its just 30 times faster and they can go from 10 or 11 or 12 lately loaded servers to just one. The speed of accessing resources is also a key factor for its popularity. Many small business and IT managers have a bad impression on virtualization saying it will slow down the operations, but according to Tom bittman (2009) its much more faster to access virtualized resources

Research by Gartner Inc., International Data Corp. (IDC), and other industry watchers (2010) they said, it might mean that as little as half or closer to 60 percent of computer, networking, and storage resources will be virtualized, In a survey conducted by Computerworld, they said when virtualization technology first came in to the industry, many business managers and CEO’s viewed it with suspicion. They saw the removal of the physical servers on which key applications ran as a worrisome. This has changed over time, as many have now recognized the operational and financial benefits of virtualization on business rather than its drawbacks.

Daniel Ruest and nelson Ruest (2009) suggest that using virtualization promises server hardware usage ratios of 80% or more while delivering the same workloads on much smaller hardware and therefore carbon foot print. According to them the Data centers around the world are looking for virtualization to reduce their carbon foot print, with the rising of cost and energy more organization feels to move to greener data centers one that will use a reduced amount of space, energy and cooling to host a small number of physical servers. This shows by utilizing the processing power of today’s high-power servers and storage devices, IT teams can deliver the same, or improved, performance with reduced operating expenses, a smaller data center footprint, and significantly curtailed greenhouse gas emissions.

Brad Thompson, told Computerworld that end users at his organization is no longer concerned about what physical IT infrastructure looks like or where it is located. "They ask if we’ve piloted it, have we proved it?" Thompson said. "We show them not only did we do that, we did it in 10 of our highest-volume stores over the holidays. They accept that. Thompson is currently working to introduce virtual machines in all of Target’s 1,755 stores. His aim is to reduce the number of physical servers in each store from seven to two by server consolidation.

According to Margaret rouse (2006) Storage Virtualization is the pooling of physical storage from multiple network storage devices into what appears to be a single storage device that is managed from a central console. Storage virtualization is commonly used in a storage area network (SAN). The management of storage devices can be tedious and time-consuming. Storage virtualization helps the storage administrator perform the tasks of backup, archiving, and recovery more easily, and in less time, by disguising the actual complexity of the SAN.

Madeleine Acey (2006) . IT managers are responsible for growth, managing the cost of implementing new business models and mitigating risk. Regulatory compliance has become a major task. In the last few years, IT managers spent 70 per cent to 80 per cent of their budgets on managing the business environment, streamlining and maintenance Cost analysis has been a major factor in IT and virtualization always contributes to the economy of business, The primary reason for the popularity of virtualization is "The cost savings that have been realized from been significant and they are being consumed by next-generation technologies and the four pillars, David McNally (2012), IDC sees IT moving from a focus on productivity and cost savings to a focus on delivering innovation in what it calls the "intelligent economy." According to the survey, 67% of CIOs see themselves as no longer the chief information officer but the "chief innovation officer." And savings from server consolidation will be reinvested in four main "pillars" of IT, he said: cloud; mobile, data analytics, and social business.

Each server VM virtualized OS and application stack has a copy of the operating system, rather than sharing a copy of the OS across multiple applications on the same server According to the (Why Are IT Leaders Deploying Virtualized Storage, 2010) the report, storage virtualization enables more efficient utilization as all forms of storage (NAS, SAN, and server-based disk) by collecting and managing them together as a single unit, with no stranding of storage assets. Among the highlights of the study: Storage virtualization provides operational benefits for business. Five of the top six benefits of deploying storage virtualization are operational, rather than financial. Nearly two thirds of respondents (63%) reported that virtualization has reduced the effort to manage their SANs.

No one seems to know just how pervasive and useful virtualization is today, but everybody seems to agree that at some point perhaps very soon virtualization will be ubiquitous and create a massive turnover in the industry. The technology was not in business for a certain period of time after its invention, but Jerome M. Wendt (2011) argued that many CEOs and CIOs consider the last ten years being a lost decade from a technology perspective. He couldn't agree more, at least in this respect. He says Vendors and companies have been trying to make server and storage configurations work that should have been put to be a bed five if not ten years ago to make room for architectures that are better suited for today's requirements. It looks that will finally begin to happen in 2011 and, in so doing, bring technology back in the business conversation again.

Leading vendors in the Virtualization software market

Virtualization is now viewed as viable for companies of all sizes. VMware leads the market by a long shot but there are a number of other vendors to choose from.

From the beginning, VMware has been the king of x86 server virtualization, hands down. VMware's feature set, reputation, security, stability and pricing all reflect that fact. But where there used to be little competition, you'll can now select group of challengers that have brought a wealth of enterprise features to their virtualization solutions and begun to give VMware a run for its money.

Find a major data center anywhere in the world that doesn't use VMware, and then pat yourself on the back because you've found one of the few. VMware dominates the server virtualization market. Its domination doesn't stop with its commercial product, vSphere. VMware also dominates the desktop-level virtualization market and perhaps even the free server virtualization market with its VMware Server product. VMware remains in the dominant spot due to its innovations, strategic partnerships and rock-solid products. (Kenneth Hess, 2010)

But vendors like Citrix with Intel and HP with Microsoft collaboration has a fair demand in the market as well.

As desktop virtualization continues to grow as an option for investing IT resources in strategic projects, rather than supporting desk-side maintenance visits, Citrix and Intel teamed on an innovative solution that unites the benefits of XenClientand Intel Core vPro processors. Our collaboration has produced an intelligent approach to desktop virtualization that delivers uncompromised performance, security and manageability to workers and IT." (Rick Echevarria, 2010)

VMware stock plunged this week by more than 30% after the EMC -controlled company posted disappointing earnings influenced by challenges from large vendors such as Microsoft and Citrix who are expanding into the field of Microsoft virtualization that VMware has long dominated (Jon Brodkin, 2008)

According to Gartner (2011) ranks Microsoft and Citrix roughly equally as challengers to VMware; most market share figures put Microsoft in a clear second place--something Citrix admits. "There are different numbers out there," said Slayton. "We see Citrix at 15-20%, Microsoft about 25%, and VMware above 50%." Others put VMware's share as high as 80%, the discrepancy caused by uncertainty over how many enterprises actually use the versions of XenServer that are downloaded free or of Hyper-V that are bundled with Windows Server in production. (Andy Dornan, 2011)

We can evidence that there is a silent race between Microsoft, Citrix and VMware. But still VMware dominates the market by a huge lead where Microsoft fights for the 2nd place with other vendors.