• Virtualisation & Consolidation
  • What is Virtualisation?
  • Server Consolidation
  • Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
  • Storage
  • Application Virtualisation

What is Virtualisation?

Virtualisation is a proven software technology that is transforming the IT landscape and substantially changing the way that companies and the people within them compute. Today’s powerful x86 computer hardware was designed to run a single operating system and a single application. This leaves most machines vastly underutilised and very costly to run. Virtualisation lets you run multiple virtual machines on a single physical machine, sharing the resources of that single computer across multiple environments. Different virtual machines can run different operating systems and multiple applications on the same physical computer.

How Does Virtualisation Work?

A virtualisation platform is built on a business-ready architecture. Using the latest software from the top providers to transform or “virtualise” the hardware resources of an x86-based computer—including the CPU, RAM, hard disk and network controller—to create a fully functional secure virtual machine that can run its own operating system and applications just like a “real” computer. Each virtual machine contains a complete system, eliminating potential conflicts. A thin layer of software sits on the computer hardware or on a host operating system. This contains a virtual machine monitor that allocates hardware resources dynamically and transparently. Multiple operating systems run concurrently on a single physical computer and share hardware resources with each other. An entire machine, including CPU, memory, operating system, and network devices can be transformed into a virtual machine completely compatible with all standard x86 operating systems, applications, and device drivers. You can safely run several operating systems and applications at the same time on a single computer, with each having access to the resources they need when you need them.