Wiley Professional Xen Virtualization 978-0-470-13811-3 Benutzerhandbuch

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978-0-470-13811-3
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   Over view of V ir tualization          
 Virtualization is one of the hottest topics in information technology today. The increasing speed 
and capabilities of today ’ s x86 processors have made virtualization possible on commodity 
hardware, and virtualization provides an attractive way of making the most of that hardware. 
 As happens with most popular IT buzzwords in their heyday, virtualization is frequently touted as 
 the  solution to all of your IT woes. I ’ m sure we ’ d all like to find some one true technology that 
enables us to set up a powerful, reliable, and highly available IT infrastructure once and for all, so 
that we can all go home or at least throttle down our hours so that we can work 9 - to - 5. I have both 
good news and bad news. The good news is that virtualization is a cool and powerful technology 
that can indeed simplify your computing infrastructure and help you get the most bang for your 
buck out of the latest, fastest processors, networking, and storage technologies. The bad news is 
that, like anything in the real world, successfully implementing, deploying, and supporting a new 
IT infrastructure based on virtualization requires the same level of planning and system design 
that any basic shift in infrastructure always has. That ’ s why we ’ re all here and why this book was 
written in the first place  —  to define basic concepts, explain basic issues, and explore how to 
successfully make the most of the best of today ’ s virtualization technologies while providing the 
capability and availability guarantees that today ’ s often - complex IT infrastructure requires. 
 This chapter provides an overview of the history of virtualization and the different types of 
virtualization that are in use today. Following this foundation, I ’ ll discuss the pros and cons 
of virtualization  —  regardless of what  hottechnologybuzzword.com  may say, there are downsides, 
or at least issues that you have to be aware of when thinking about introducing virtualization into 
your computing environment. Although this book is about Xen, this chapter primarily focuses on 
providing a thorough background on virtualization concepts and theory rather than any specific 
technology; it remains relatively agnostic to any specific approach to virtualization or its 
implementation. Don ’ t worry  —  as you might expect (and hope), the rest of this book focuses on 
Xen, why it is the most attractive of today ’ s virtualization solutions, and how to successfully make 
the most of Xen in your computing environment.  
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