Virtualization Technology

What is Virtualization technology ?

Virtualization is very useful for those who want to run multiple operating system on a single PC. It is very useful for IT administrators, software developers etc. For virtualization, Microsoft designed a software called Hyper-V. It is the machine virtualization technology which has been part of the last two releases of Windows Server.

What is Hyper-V technology ?

With the help of Hyper-V, users can run more than one 32-bit or 64-bit x86 operating system at the same time on the same computer. Instead of working directly with computer's hardware, operating system will run inside of a Virtual machine (VM). With the help of Hyper-V it is easy for developers to maintain multiple test environments and to provide a easy mechanism to switch between environments without paying on additional hardware costs. For general users, they can use Hyper-V to try out new operating system without risking changes to the PC which they are actively using.

Requirements of Hyper-V technology

Hyper-V requires a 64-bit system which has SLAT(Second Level Address Translation). It is a feature which is present in the current generation of 64-bit processors of Intel and AMD. Apart from the SLAT processors, users need a 64-bit version of Windows 8 operating system, minimum 4GB of RAM. Hyper-V supports both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems in the Virtual Machines.

How Hyper-V works ?

Hyper-V allows memory needed by the virtual machines to be allocated and de-allocated dynamically. Users can specify minimum and maximum amount of memory and Hyper-V shares unused memory between virtual machines. Users can run 3 or 4 virtual machines on a machine which has 4GB of RAM. If users want to run more than 4 virtual machines at a time, they need more RAM. 

Windows provides two types of mechanisms with virtual machines. They are 

1) VM Console 

2) Remote Desktop Connection.

VM Console which is also known as VMConnect, is a console view of virtual machine. VM Console provides a single monitor view of the virtual machine with resolution up to 1600x1200 in 32-bit color. To get better experience, many of the users connect to the virtual machine using Remote Desktop Connection which is also called as RDC. With the help of RDC, virtual machine takes advantage of capabilities which were present on users computer. 

Users can add multiple hard disks to IDE or SCSI controllers which were available in the VM. They can use virtual hard disks or actual disks. One of the important feature in Hyper-V is the ability to take snapshots of a virtual machine while it is running. With the help of snapshot, users can save everything about the virtual machine which will be helpful to go back to a previous point if they occurs any problem in VM.