CHARACTERISTICS OF VIRTUALISATION

1. Increased Security –
The ability to control the execution of a guest program in a completely
transparent manner opens new possibilities for delivering a secure,
controlled execution environment. All the operations of the guest programs
are generally performed against the virtual machine, which then translates
and applies them to the host programs.
A virtual machine manager can control and filter the activity of the guest
programs, thus preventing some harmful operations from being performed.
Resources exposed by the host can then be hidden or simply protected from
the guest. Increased security is a requirement when dealing with untrusted
code.
Example-1: Untrusted code can be analyzed in Cuckoo sandboxes
environment.
The term sandbox identifies an isolated execution environment where
instructions can be filtered and blocked before being translated and
executed in the real execution environment.
Example-2: The expression sandboxed version of the Java Virtual Machine
(JVM) refers to a particular configuration of the JVM where, by means of
security policy, instructions that are considered potentially harmful can be
blocked.
2. Managed Execution –
In particular, sharing, aggregation, emulation, and
isolation are the most relevant features.
3. Sharing –
Virtualization allows the creation of a separate computing
environment within the same host. This basic feature is used to
reduce the number of active servers and limit power
consumption.
4. Aggregation –
It is possible to share physical resources among several guests,
but virtualization also allows aggregation, which is the opposite
process. A group of separate hosts can be tied together and
represented to guests as a single virtual host. This functionality
is implemented with cluster management software, which
harnesses the physical resources of a homogeneous group of
machines and represents them as a single resource.
5. Emulation –
Guest programs are executed within an environment that is controlled by
the virtualization layer, which ultimately is a program. Also, a completely
different environment with respect to the host can be emulated, thus
allowing the execution of guest programs requiring specific characteristics
that are not present in the physical host.
6. Isolation –
Virtualization allows providing guests—whether they are operating systems,
applications, or other entities—with a completely separate environment, in
which they are executed. The guest program performs its activity by
interacting with an abstraction layer, which provides access to the
underlying resources. The virtual machine can filter the activity of the guest
and prevent harmful operations against the host.
Besides these characteristics, another important capability enabled by
virtualization is performance tuning. This feature is a reality at present,
given the considerable advances in hardware and software supporting
virtualization. It becomes easier to control the performance of the guest by
finely tuning the properties of the resources exposed through the virtual
environment. This capability provides a means to effectively implement a
quality-of-service (QoS) infrastructure.
7. Portability –
The concept of portability applies in different ways according to the specific type of
virtualization considered.
In the case of a hardware virtualization solution, the guest is packaged into a virtual
image that, in most cases, can be safely moved and executed on top of different virtual
machines.
In the case of programming-level virtualization, as implemented by the JVM or
the .NET runtime, the binary code representing application components (jars or
assemblies) can run without any recompilation on any implementation of the
corresponding virtual machine.
8.Resource sharing:
Virtualization allows multiple virtual machines to
share the resources of a single physical machine,
such as CPU, memory, storage, and network
bandwidth. This improves hardware utilization and
reduces the need for additional physical servers.
9.Flexibility:
Virtualization allows IT administrators to quickly
and easily create, modify, or delete virtual
machines as needed, without the need to purchase
and configure additional physical hardware.
10.Hardware independence:
Virtual machines are hardware-independent, which
means they can run on different types of physical
hardware and can be easily moved between
physical servers without needing to reconfigure the
virtual machine.
11.Scalability:
Virtualization allows organizations to scale their
computing resources up or down as needed,
depending on changing business requirements.
12.Management:
Virtualization provides centralized management
tools that allow IT administrators to monitor and
manage multiple virtual machines from a single
console, making it easier to troubleshoot and
maintain the virtualized environment.
virtualization provides a powerful and flexible
technology that can help organizations
maximize their hardware utilization, improve
their IT infrastructure scalability, and simplify
their IT management.
13.Disaster Recovery:
Virtualization enables organizations to
implement disaster recovery solutions more
easily and cost-effectively. By replicating virtual
machines to remote sites, organizations can
quickly recover from a disaster and resume
operations.
14.Testing and Development:
Virtualization allows organizations to easily create
test and development environments without the
need for additional physical hardware. This enables
developers to test new applications and
configurations in a controlled environment before
deploying them to production.
15.Energy Efficiency:
Virtualization can help organizations reduce their
energy consumption by consolidating multiple
physical servers onto a single machine. This can
result in lower electricity bills and a reduced carbon
footprint.
16.Increased Uptime:
Virtualization can help improve system uptime by
enabling virtual machines to be migrated to
different physical hosts in the event of a hardware
failure. This can minimize downtime and prevent
data loss.
17.Cost Savings:
Virtualization can help organizations save money
by reducing the need for additional physical
hardware, lowering electricity bills, and
streamlining IT operations. This can result in
significant cost savings over time.
18.Improved Security Management:
Virtualization can help organizations improve their
security posture by isolating applications and
workloads from each other. This can prevent
security breaches from spreading to other parts of
the environment and reduce the attack surface.
19.Cloud Migration:
Virtualization can be a stepping stone for
organizations looking to migrate to the cloud. By
virtualizing their existing infrastructure,
organizations can make it easier to move
workloads to the cloud and take advantage of
cloud-based services.