Is Virtualization Magic? (And Other Questions Your Manager May Ask)

One of the fun things about being a leader in IT is the opportunity to see new technology and explain it to others for the first time. We love to see people’s eyes get big and excited when some new wizardry is introduced and we’re the first one to explain it.

In the simplest terms, a key outcome of virtualization that the virtual engine software layer divides either hardware or software into more pieces than originally existed. Instead of one operating system running, the same hardware can run several concurrently. For example, these can even be of different flavors such as Linux and Windows running on the same Intel hardware. Where it gets interesting is that each additional system running doesn’t divide computing power in half, like you might expect. Instead, an overall gain in system utilization is found in this approach. This “unused” power frees computing resources without the need to procure new hardware.

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