What is the Link Between Virtualization and Cloud Computing?
Many private cloud computing applications are based on virtualization. And for successful cloud computing, there is a need that virtualization must work in association with various technologies. So you have established virtualization, but the question is whether you have a private cloud? Perhaps. Well, let’s have a discussion about what exactly differentiates virtualization and private cloud computing? It is similar to the analogy “how the color blue and green are different.” The color blue changes to the green color, when combined with yellow. Similar to this is the analogy that virtualization is simply one of the components that contributes to the functionality of cloud computing.
There is another statement in context of the two technologies: “Cloud computing does not relies on virtualization or any other technique”. To justify this, it will not be wrong to say that cloud computing can be carried without virtualization. Certain operating systems, hardware and even application clusters can deliver computing services. But these technologies tend to be complicated and costly, often expecting a lot of work that provides a specific set of features. The more probable scenario is that a private cloud computing domain is deployed on a virtual infrastructure. Many of the companies have positioned virtualization by establishing virtual servers over their existing stacks of storage, security and networking. But with private cloud computing, you need to give thought, and design these technologies in combination with each other. Essentially, a private cloud must be established on the stacks with which your virtual infrastructure was built.
Virtualization as a Component of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing is not just a technology, but also a methodology. You will not be able to plan any single component without accounting for the effect on all of the other components. You also need to consider practices and policies that control the chargeback, procurement, monitoring and many other aspects of your IT infrastructure. For instance, the ability to rapidly planning a virtual machine is not at all beneficial if it takes approximately two months time to order and install a host server. Moreover, procurement will be a problem if the chargeback is not recovering the costs, and that needs monitoring of resources and their utilization. If there are different provisioning schedules for storage as well as compute resources, they should be properly documented and reconciled in order to forecast demand.
Again, private cloud computing does not rely on any sole technology like virtualization. It utilizes a set of technologies that have been aligned for greater flexibility and providing a wide gamut of services. This approach does not center on virtualization, but virtualization contributes really well to the core concepts of cloud computing. Therefore, cloud computing and virtualization are closely connected due to increased emphasis on the cloud. Even the major hypervisor vendors like Microsoft and Citrix systems have aligned their product range with tools and alternate technologies that support the adoption of private cloud computing.
To sum up, we can say that cloud computing closely aligns with virtualization, but requires other technologies to be successful as well.
Disclaimer: This article was written by a guest contributor in his/her personal capacity. The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of CloudWedge.com.
