Chapter 16

Virtualization and the Hybrid Cloud

In This Chapter

Finding out what virtualization is all about

Server virtualization and the hybrid cloud

Managing virtualization

Any discussion of cloud computing usually includes virtualization. Virtualization is the process of using computer resources to imitate other computer resources or whole computers. Virtualization is really one of the foundational technology for cloud computing and serves as an enabler for many types of cloud implementations.

In this chapter, we present an overview of virtualization. One of the most important uses of virtualization is on the server, so we focus strongly on that. We also examine what virtualization means in a hybrid cloud. Because managing virtualization is so important, and there are a lot of twists in the hybrid world, we end the chapter with these issues.