Questions tagged [virtualization]

Virtualization is the creation of a virtual—rather than actual—version of something, such as a: hardware platform, operating system, storage device, or network resources

Virtualization is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as a hardware platform, operating system, a storage device or network resources.

Virtualization helps in:

  1. Better use of under-utilized computers
  2. Hardware Independence
  3. Data protection

I) Virtualization can be done at zonal level, software or hardware.

The main reason for server virtualization is to maximize the utilization of resources. In the conventional system each application will have its own dedicated server. The drawback is that most of the resources remain unused most of the time. Typically, less than 20% of a physical server resource gets utilized. Companies still need to spend money, energy and resources for updating each of these physical servers and keeping them up and running. Virtualization divides each of the physical servers into multiple virtual servers, thus creating multiple logical instances of software on a single physical hardware. Thus multiple applications can run on a single server and each application running on a virtual server is made to feel that it is the unique holder of the physical resource. Thus it maximizes resource utilization and reduces the cost of maintenance by reducing the number of physical servers.

II) Network Virtualization: Given a physical network, virtualization allows for multiple logical networks to run atop(parallely) the common physical substrate. Thus, multiple users can share the network resources and it provides a secure/ reliable connection among the virtually connected nodes.

2366 questions
42
votes
10 answers

Determine when running in a virtual machine

Is there an official way for an application to determine if it is running in VMWare or Virtual PC (or whatever Microsoft is calling it now)? The code I have seen is usually a hack that took advantage of some odd behavioral side effect in a specific…
Jim McKeeth
  • 38,225
  • 23
  • 120
  • 194
42
votes
1 answer

What does Apache Mesos actually do?

I am trying to wrap my head around Apache Mesos and need clarification on a few items. My understanding of Mesos is that it is an executable that gets installed on every physical/VM server ("node") in a cluster, and then provides a Java API…
smeeb
  • 27,777
  • 57
  • 250
  • 447
41
votes
3 answers

VM Player: is it possible to create snapshots?

I am currently using VMPlayer to host Windows 2008/SharePoint 2010. I created a virtual environment and I would like the ability to revert to snapshots or restore points. Is this possible?
David
  • 3,047
  • 4
  • 45
  • 79
40
votes
2 answers

What exactly do shadow page tables (for VMMs) do?

My understanding is that shadow page tables eliminate the need to emulate physical memory inside of the VM. ie. Instead of: guest OS -> VMM + virtual physical memory -> host OS -> host hardware It's just: guest OS -> VMM -> host OS -> host…
aerain
  • 1,149
  • 3
  • 12
  • 17
39
votes
11 answers

Intel's HAXM equivalent for AMD on Windows OS

Is there any equivalent of Intel's HAXM for AMD (Windows OS) or has anybody been able to hack HAXM to make it work on AMD processors (Windows OS)? Also, would Genymotion (http://www.genymotion.com) be significantly faster compared to the default…
38
votes
10 answers

Can VirtualBox be executed under Amazon EC2 instance?

We have a test system where a VirtualBox VM snapshot is started before each major test. The snapshot contains a state of the tested system specific to the test. This is a memory-intensive testing. There is an idea to move the daily test run into…
Vladimir Dyuzhev
  • 18,130
  • 10
  • 48
  • 62
38
votes
12 answers

How to identify that you're running under a VM?

Is there a way to identify, from within a VM, that your code is running inside a VM? I guess there are more or less easy ways to identify specific VM systems, especially if the VM has the provider's extensions installed (such as for VirtualBox or…
Wilson
  • 751
  • 1
  • 7
  • 9
38
votes
5 answers

Node.js development, windows or linux?

I'm interested in web development on the Node.js platform. My host OS is Windows 7. What would be the preferd way to set up a development environment. Run it directly on the host or in a linux based virtual machine? What are the pros and cons…
Gabriel Smoljar
  • 1,226
  • 2
  • 14
  • 32
37
votes
3 answers

why setting ScrollViewer.CanContentScroll to false disable virtualization

As most WPF developers know, setting ScrollViewer.CanContentScroll to false will disable virtualization; but I'd like to know how it works, because I try to enable virtualization while setting ScrollViewer.CanContentScroll to false.
Park Wu
  • 371
  • 1
  • 3
  • 3
36
votes
4 answers

C#: Create a virtual drive in Computer

Is there any way to create a virtual drive in "(My) Computer" and manipulate it, somewhat like JungleDisk does it? It probably does something like: override OnRead(object sender, Event e) { ShowFilesFromAmazon(); } Are there any API:s for this?…
Seb Nilsson
  • 26,200
  • 30
  • 103
  • 130
36
votes
4 answers

What is the overhead of a context-switch?

Originally I believed the overhead to a context-switch was the TLB being flushed. However I just saw on wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translation_lookaside_buffer In 2008, both Intel (Nehalem)[18] and AMD (SVM)[19] have introduced tags…
user997112
  • 29,025
  • 43
  • 182
  • 361
36
votes
2 answers

WPF VirtualizingStackPanel for increased performance

I would like a simple description of how to implement a virtualizingstackpanel for an ItemsControl that is databound to an ObservableCollection in my MVVM. I have an ItemsControl instance for each tab in a tab control, and switching tabs becomes…
bluebit
  • 2,987
  • 7
  • 34
  • 42
35
votes
6 answers

Is GPU pass-through possible with docker for Windows?

I am trying to run an application inside a docker container in Windows 10. But I am not able to get the GPU working inside docker. I read that it needs "GPU Pass-through." How should I get around this?
Srihari Humbarwadi
  • 2,532
  • 1
  • 10
  • 28
34
votes
8 answers

Slow down CPU to simulate slower computers in browser testing

I'm trying to see how our web pages behave on an average customer's computer. We have not yet pinned down this configuration, but it's likely to be slower than what our developers and testers will have. I've seen answers to similar questions that…
Bernard Chen
  • 6,437
  • 5
  • 23
  • 27
34
votes
3 answers

iOS for VirtualBox

Is there anyway to install Apple iOS in VirtualBox? i have installed Android on VirtualBox with live Android and i have installed Snow leopard on VirtualBox but i don't know whether i could do the same with iOS if there is a way please let me…
Keshan
  • 14,251
  • 10
  • 48
  • 72