ABSTRACT
In traditional systems, computing has been based on bare-metal machines. These dictated constraints on capacity and computation, since it had to be available in a physical infrastructure. The systems were not flexible and were difficult to scale. The consumers needed in-house trained and skillful people for maintaining the structure. Furthermore, because of the static nature of hardware, supply had to be always higher than the inconstant hardware demand. This is not a cost-efficient approach since the supply does not follow the elastic demand, resulting in underused hardware. For example, an extra 1% need in capacity at any time instant t, meant the change for a new whole hard drive. Nowadays, software evolution outperforms hardware evolution. Although virtualization is not a new concept, it turns out to be the panacea to the demand and supply challenges of the modern digital world. It has given the possibility for a more cost-efficient approach to optimization. This layer of abstraction brought emancipation from the hardware, opening new ways of answering a growing demand for informatics that is, flexible allocation of resources on pay-as-you-go model.
