There is a lot of buzz going around about Virtualization.\nWhat is Virtualization, and what benefits does it provide?\nIn this article we will take a look at the technology to see\nhow it can provide a great deal of flexibility and cost\neffectiveness for IT professionals and software developers.\nVirtualization technology allows multiple virtual machines\nto run on a single host computer. These virtual machines can\nrun different operating systems, such as Windows, Linux and\nUNIX. Each virtual machine has its own set of virtual\nhardware resources (e.g., CPU, RAM, Hard Drive, etc)\nallowing the operating system to run as if it were installed\non a physical machine.\nThe benefits of Virtualization technology are far reaching.\nMany organizations have moved to the virtual machine\nsolution to consolidate multiple servers, running side by\nside on a single physical machine. Server consolidation\nallows IT professionals to fully utilize server resources,\nwhile isolating virtual machines and allowing them to run\ndifferent operating systems and applications. Software\ndevelopers utilize virtual machine technology to quickly\ntest applications on different operating systems, without\nthe hassle of setting up multiple physical machines for\ntesting or taking the risk of causing problems by testing in\na production environment.\nYou can run Virtualization software on pretty much any\nplatform. Once the software is installed it is simple to\ncreate virtual machine instances. Virtual machines are just\na set of files located on the host machine. You configure\nyour virtual machine settings on the host computer, install\nthe operating system and you are ready to go. It is a very\ncommon practice to use a master image of a virtual machine.\nThis master image can be a fully configured machine, with\nthe operating system and all required applications\ninstalled. You can then rapidly deploy virtual machines by\ncopying the master image to multiple Virtualization hosts to\nprovide zero downtime and 100% server availability.\nThere are a number of Virtualization products available.\nVMWare, which is probably the most popular, recently\nannounced that it will be releasing a free version of its\nGSX Server product. This will allow any organization to host\nvirtual machines on either Windows or Linux hosts. Other\nVirtualization products include Microsoft’s Virtual Server and SWsoft’s Virtuozzo, just to name a few.\n