Virtualization: A Manager's Guide

Chapter 9. Using Virtualization: The Right Tool for the Job

Highlighting When Use Cases Are Confused with Technology

Media reports often confuse base virtualization technology with specific use cases or instances of use of virtualization technology. So, for example, when virtual machine technology, one of the five types of processing virtualization, is used, media reports might discuss that as either server virtualization or desktop virtualization. The use of application virtualization, processing virtualization, or storage virtualization might be discussed as “clustering.” Let’s examine a few use cases or instances and see what technology is really being used:

• “Big data”

• Clusters

• Desktop virtualization

• High-performance computing

• Server virtualization

• Extreme transaction processing

This chapter is meant to examine industry catchphrases and quickly review which parts of the virtualization model are actually in use. Please refer to the chapter on each of those topics for more information.

Big Data

“Big data” (see Figure 9-1 ), a specific use of a combination of processing virtualization and storage virtualization, is a catchphrase that has been bubbling up from the high-performance computing niche of the IT market (more about that later in this chapter). Yes, this configuration is a cluster (see the next section) that is being used specifically to manage extremely large stores of rapidly changing data.

Figure 9-1. Big data

Increasingly suppliers of processing virtualization and storage virtualization ...