ABSTRACT
The main objective of this chapter is to introduce the concept of virtualization and how it is used as enabling technology for cloud computing. After reading this chapter, you will
• Understand the basics of virtualization • Understand how the different resources such as processors, memory,
storage, and network can be virtualized • Understand the pros and cons of different approaches to
virtualization • Understand the basics of hypervisor and its security issues • Understand how cloud computing is different from virtualization • Understand how cloud computing leverages the virtualization for
its different service models
Virtualization is an enabling technology for the different cloud computing services. It helps to improve scalability and resource utilization of the underlying infrastructure. It also enables the IT personnel to perform the administration task easier. With the help of resource sharing, the hypervisor supports the green IT services. This chapter describes virtualization and discusses the benefits of virtualization and, different resources that can be virtualized. This chapter also explains the different approach for virtualization such as full virtualization, hardware-assisted virtualization, and paravirtualization. The different types of hypervisors and its security issues are also discussed. At the end of the chapter, the difference between cloud computing and virtualization and how virtualization is used by cloud computing to provide services are discussed.
