The purpose of Virtualization

Virtualization is the ability to allow one physical computer to run multiple instances of an operating system or multiple operating systems on the same physical computer. The basic concepts of virtualization are not new but come from the mainframe computing world, where they were originally designed to maximize the resource utilization of expensive hardware and software so businesses could get the best most efficient utilization of their mainframe processing capacity. This ability of the more modern servers also presents both security challenges and benefits. With more virtual machines there are more patches that need to be applied, more servers to be secured, virtual machines to be created and just as important removed, and users accessing both internal and external resources.

In addition to server virtualization there is application virtualization technology. Virtual applications run on servers located remote from the users. These users do not need to have the application or data loaded on their desktop devices. Application virtualization allows applications that may be sensitive or not compatible with a user’s desktop to operate as if they were loaded locally. These virtual applications also do not leave a trace on the client machine, so they are safe to use from computers outside the trusted network.