Mastering Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2

2.3. Virtualization Types

Before we get ahead of ourselves, we need to dig deeper into the various types of virtualization in use today. This is fully explored in Table 2.1.

Each virtualization type listed in Table 2.1 addresses specific user scenarios and use cases that do not necessarily overlap. At each level, you are guaranteed a different level of isolation between operating systems, users, and processes. The level of isolation is important when considering failures and your tolerance for risk. On the one extreme, hardware virtualization multiplexes physical hardware, requiring a new operating system instance for every virtual machine. This is the coarsest granularity of virtualization and offers the highest level of isolation. Any virtual ...