Characteristics of Virtualization in Cloud Computing

Virtualization has three characteristics that make it ideal for cloud computing:

• Partitioning: In virtualization, many applications and operating systems (OSes) are supported in a single physical system by partitioning (separating) the available resources.
• Isolation: Each virtual machine is isolated from its host physical system and other virtualized machines. Because of this isolation, if one virtual-instance crashes, it doesn’t affect the other virtual machines. In addition, data isn’t shared between one virtual container and another.
• Encapsulation: A virtual machine can be represented (and even stored) as a single file, so you can identify it easily based on the service it provides. In essence, the encapsulated process could be a business service. This encapsulated virtual machine can be presented to an application as a complete entity. Therefore, encapsulation can protect each application so that it doesn’t interfere with another application.