How virtualization works

How virtualization works
Virtualization describes a technology in which an application, guest operating system (guest OS) or data storage is abstracted away from the true underlying hardware or software. A key use of virtualization technology is server virtualization, which uses a software layer -- called a hypervisor -- to emulate the underlying hardware. This often includes the CPU's memory, input/output (I/O) and network traffic. Hypervisors take the physical resources and separate them so they can be utilized by the virtual environment. They are able to sit on top of an OS or they can be directly installed onto the hardware. The latter is how most enterprises virtualize their systems.

The Xen hypervisor is an open source software program that is responsible for managing the low-level interactions that occur between virtual machines (VMs) and the physical hardware. In other words, the Xen hypervisor allows for the simultaneous creation, execution and management of various virtual machines in one physical environment.

With the help of the hypervisor, the guest OS, normally interacting with true hardware, is now doing so with a software emulation of that hardware; often, the guest OS has no idea it's on virtualized hardware. While the performance of this virtual system is not equal to the performance of the operating system running on true hardware, the concept of virtualization works because most guest operating systems and applications don't need the full use of the underlying hardware. This allows for greater flexibility, control and isolation by removing the dependency on a given hardware platform. While initially meant for server virtualization, the concept of virtualization has spread to applications, networks, data and desktops.

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