A Virtual Machine acts as a computer within a computer, it runs on a host computer.
virtual machines help us use multiple operating systems on a host computer that uses the same resources which are allocated to the host operating system. Today we'll be talking about the introduction of Virtual Machines.
What is Virtual Machine?
A Virtual Machine is a virtual environment where it acts as a virtual computer or system. They mimic computer architectures and offer the same functionality as a physical computer. In reality, it takes the resources from the host computer for example the virtual machine takes CPU cycles, Memory, etc. We can use multiple operating systems at a time. Many virtual machines can exist in a host computer it actually depends on the specification and capability of the host computer. Virtual Machines are isolated from the rest of the system.
How do Virtual Machines work?
- Virtualization is the reason why we can use virtual machines and Hypervisor is the software that makes virtualization happen.
- The hypervisor is the reason why virtual machines can act as individual computers.
- A hypervisor is a software that allows the guest operating system to utilize the resources required for eg, memory and processing, etc.
- Hypervisor lets the guest Operating System share its resources from the Host computer virtually, As VM's [Virtual Machines] need hardware resources.
Why do we use Virtual Machines?
- We can run multiple operating systems at a time.
- We can try out new operating systems, or we can say beta versions.
- We can try a few risky or restricted things in an operating system via a guest operating system.
- We can try few features which are only applicable to few operating systems.
- We can also try out the old versions of software, some people enjoy using old versions of Windows [for eg. Windows 11].
Advantages of Virtual Machines
Recovery of Data
- We can store data in virtual machines. This can be helpful whenever the data is lost in the host machine.
Multiple Operating Systems
- We can run multiple Operating systems at a time. for example, if the host machine has Windows operating system, then we can use Linux or Mac simultaneously with the host operating system.
Security
- It offers security and helps in keeping the data safe from others.
Reducing the number of Physical Computers
- This is a very helpful feature for an organization and environment as we can use virtual machines instead of extra physical machines.
- For a business organization, this is very helpful as power consumption will be decreased by a large percent.
Utilization of Machines
- In many cases, An organization does not utilize its hardware resources, instead of using another physical machine they can utilize it up to its maximum limit.
- With this, it may reduce the cost an organization is investing in hardware resources.
Types of Virtual Machines
There are two types of Virtual Machines
- Process Virtual Machine
- System Virtual Machine
Process Virtual Machine
- This virtual machine does not provide us the complete installation of the virtual operating system.
- This type of virtual machine creates a virtual environment for programs or applications.
- This environment will be destroyed as soon as we close or exit the application.
- This virtual machine is platform-independent as it masks the underlying information of the Operating system.
- An example of this kind of virtual machine is JVM[Java Virtual Machine].
System Virtual Machine
- This type of virtual machine provides us the complete installation of the virtual operating system.
- This type of virtual machine supports of host's physical resources to various virtual machines.
- This type of virtual machine is called an exact copy of the host computer machine.
- IBM's CP/CMS is the first operating system to allow full virtualization.
Popular Virtual Machines Software
These are the software that allows accessing multiple guest software on the host.
1) Virtualization Manager
- It is a virtual machine monitoring tool that helps to fix and optimize issues
- It is designed by Solar Winds.
- It provides predictive recommendations.
- It can be integrated with the Hyper-V environment.
2) VM Monitor
- It is a monitoring tool that helps in the management of various virtual machines.
- It provides us the usage of various resources like CPU utilization, memory usage, etc.
- It helps us to find the cause for performance issues.
3) Hyper-V
- It is Microsoft's hardware virtualization product.
- It lets us create and run a software version of a computer, called a virtual machine.
- It makes development and tests more efficient.
- It lets us use hardware more efficiently.
4) Red Hat Virtualization
- It is designed by Red Hat.
- It is open-source software that allows virtualization for Linux and Microsoft Windows.
- It is considered to be one of the best and free virtualization software.
- It is easy to set up, use, and manages.
- It is used to host multiple Virtual Machines.
5) VirtualBox
- It is an open-source hypervisor for x86 computers.
- It supports various platforms like Solaris, Open-Solaris, Linux, Mac, Windows.
- We can resize the window of the virtual machine.
- It gives us the flexibility to run any application.
6) Boot Camp
- It is a virtual machine software that comes with Mac.
- It helps us to use Windows and Mac simultaneously.
- It is free and open-source software.
7) Citrix Hypervisor
- It Manages Virtualization.
- It allows security for users to store data.
- It Empowers users with enhanced graphic workloads.
Conclusion
A Virtual Machine acts as a computer within a computer, it runs on a host computer. virtual machines help us use multiple operating systems on a host computer that uses the same resources which are allocated to the host operating system. Virtual Machines provide various solutions for existing problems. The hypervisor is the software that makes virtual machines possible. There is various Virtual Machine software present.
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