we’ve been working on a number of virtualisation projects recently and one of the things often missed is the types of virtualisation that are available, one of the reports I’m writing at the minute outline some of the different types of virtualisation solutions out there and thought you may find it useful to be familiar with some of the phrases that get thrown around by us technical folk!

There are many types of virtualisation out there however some of the ones that are more common are;

• Server Virtualisation
• Desktop Virtualisation
• Application Virtualisation
• Presentation Virtualisation

And these are just a few of them, there’s things like storage virtualisation and compute clusters and many more!

The following section provides a brief description of each technology

Server Virtualisation

Is a method of partitioning a physical server computer into multiple servers so that each has the appearance of running on its own dedicated machine. Each virtual server can run its own full-fledged operating system, have its own resources allocated to it and each server can be independently rebooted.

The ability to partition physical hardware in this way as long been available on mid and mainframe systems, however is becoming increasingly widely adopted in the Intel (and AMD) server arena, with increasing amounts of virtualisation software been made available.

Desktop Virtualisation

Is a relatively new term that describes the process of separating a personal computer desktop (its applications, files and data) from the physical machine. The ‘virtualised’ desktop is stored on a remote central server instead of on the hard-drive of the local personal computer. This means that when users work from their desktops, all of the programs, applications, processes and data used by the desktop are kept and run centrally, allowing users to remotely access their desktops on any device which is capable of displaying the desktop, such as a PC, laptop, smartphone or thin client.

Application virtualisation

Is an umbrella term that describes software technologies that improve portability, manageability and compatibility of applications by encapsulating them from the underlying operating system on which they are executed. A fully virtualized application is not installed in the traditional sense, although it is still executed as if it is. The application is fooled at runtime into believing that it is directly interfacing with the original operating system and all the resources managed by it, when in reality it is not.

Presentation Virtualisation (Terminal Services)

Allows you to install and manage applications on centralised servers in the data center; screen images are delivered to the users, and the users’ client machines, in turn, send keystrokes and mouse movements back to the server. Administrators can present users with the individual applications and data they require to complete their task, or the whole remote desktop. From a user perspective, these applications are integrated seamlessly—looking, feeling, and behaving like local applications.

thought as we wrote this into a report, it would be something others found useful, hence here it is been blogged about.

of course these technologies don’t have to be run in isolation and can indeed all be run together as they are not necessarily competitive technologies but can be very much complimentary.

now just to find an explanation of storage virtualisation!