Virtualization is abstraction of the physical computing platform and resources. This concept enables you to run more than one independent computer system on a single physical computer system. The basic idea behind virtualization is to use software to simulate the existence of hardware. A single hardware platform can be used to support multiple virtual devices or machines.

Network virtualization is a technique of amalgamating accessible resources in a network by breaking up the obtainable bandwidth into small channels. Each of these channels is separately attached and serves a particular device. Any subscriber can access all the resources on the network from a single computer. The aim of network virtualization is to optimize the network speed, scalability, and security.

For example, an organization needs 200 servers to meet its needs; one can use virtualization to run these 200 servers on just 20 computers. In effect, each of those computers would simulate 10 separate computer systems, each running one of your servers.

Each of the simulated computers is called a virtual machine or VMs. Each virtual machine appears to be a self-sufficient system with a processor memory, disk drives, CD-ROM/DVD drives, keyboard, mouse, monitor, network interfaces, USB ports etc. Each virtual machine needs an operating system to accomplish productive work. However, the operating system is not certain whether it’s running on a virtual machine or on a real machine.

Network virtualization solves a lot of the networking challenges faced in today’s data centers. Network virtualization is used in application development and testing. Using network virtualization, organizations can simplify work assignments and resources to meet their computing needs.

These are three terms you need to be familiar with when talking about network virtualization:

• Guest: The virtual machine running on a host.
• Host: The physical computer on which the machines run.
• Hypervisor: The virtualization operating system that creates and runs virtual machines.

Network management is a time-consuming business when operated by a manual administrator. However, when automated, it improves productivity and efficiency by performing many of these tasks simultaneously. Data can be centrally managed from a single physical site. Storage media such as hard drives and tape drives can be easily added or reassigned. Storage space can be shared or reallocated among the servers.

Software developers use network virtualization to test software under development in a simulation of the network environments in which the software is intended to operate. The validity of the test is based on the accuracy of the network virtualization.

At Pegasus InfoCorp, we develop innovative solutions for clients and remain engaged with them right from the architecture through design and development, migration, to deployment. We believe that with virtualization, organizations can benefit from efficiencies and agility of software-based compute and storage resources. We believe that a virtualized solution is much more mobile, scalable and cost-effective than a hardware-based solution.