Virtualization and cloud computing
The terms virtualization and cloud computing are often tossed about with vague, sometimes overlapping meanings. Here is an attempt to highlight the difference between them:
- Virtualization is a technology for abstracting software systems from the environment in which they operate
- Cloud computing is a methodology for employing virtualization and other technologies to enable the deployment, monitoring, and control of large-scale data centers
The use of virtualization in cloud computing environments enables the flexible deployment of application workloads across an array of generic computing hardware in a controlled, coherent manner. By implementing applications such as web servers within virtual machines, it is possible to dynamically scale online computing capacity to match varying load conditions.
Commercial cloud service providers generally offer the use of their systems on a pay-per-capacity-used basis. A website that...
