Virtualization For Dummies®

Chapter 1. Wrapping Your Head around Virtualization

In This Chapter

• Finding out what virtualization is

• Figuring out what has everyone so excited

• Seeing how virtualization is applied

• Working through the challenges of virtualization

It seems like everywhere you go these days, someone is talking about virtualization. Technical magazines trumpet the technology on their covers. Virtualization sessions are featured prominently at technology conferences. And, predictably enough, technology vendors are describing how their product is the latest word in virtualization.

If you have the feeling that everyone else in the world understands virtualization perfectly while you're still trying to understand just what it is and how you might take advantage of it, take heart. Virtualization is a new technology. (Actually, it's a pretty well‐established technology, but a confluence of conditions happening just now has brought it into new prominence — more on that later in this chapter.) Virtualization is a technology being widely applied today with excellent operational and financial results, but it's by no means universally used or understood. That's the purpose of this book: to provide you with an introduction to the subject so that you can understand its promise and perils and create an action plan to decide whether virtualization is right for you, as well as move forward with implementing it should you decide it is right for you.

Sadly, not even this book can protect you from the overblown claims of vendors; ...