VIRTUALIZATION2LT Le, Chuong HClass 003-014In the world of information technology, virtualization means the use of software to emulate a system by separating a resource or request from service of the underlying physical delivery of that service. Simply put, virtualization is a technology that allows multiple operating systems to run simultaneously on a single physical machine. This research paper briefly focuses on two categories of virtualization: hardware and storage, while identifying some of the benefits. Virtualization is commonly applied to physical hardware resources by combining multiple physical resources into shared pools from which users receive virtual resources. Virtualization software such as VMWare acts as a layer between a computer's main operating system and the virtual operating system; allows the virtual system to access the computer's storage space, memory, processor, network card, and other physical assets, just like the main operating system. Virtual resources may have features or functions that are not available in their underlying physical resources. By partitioning a physical server into multiple virtual machines (VMs), each VM can independently interact with other applications, devices, data, and users as if it were a separate physical resource. Essentially, machine virtualization helps optimize hardware usage by packing more applications and services onto fewer pieces of hardware, while maintaining separation of operating systems. Virtualization helps IT administrators make better use of physical resources, without compromising the original goal of keeping services isolated. Different virtual machines can run different operating systems and multiple applications while sharing the resources of a single physical computer. ...... middle of paper ...... same physical hardware, IT administrators can consolidate hardware and instantly create production, QA, and test environments. Storage virtualization allows physical storage from multiple network storage sources to be consolidated into what appears to be a single storage device. This greatly helps administrators to perform backup, expansion, archiving and recovery tasks more easily and in a short time. Virtualization can provide various benefits, including reduced hardware costs, better power consumption, workload optimization, flexibility and responsiveness. Virtualization allows the IT administrator to efficiently access and manage resources to reduce operating and system management costs while maintaining necessary capacity. With these kinds of benefits, most businesses find it easy to justify the cost of implementing virtualization.