Virtual Machine and its Benefits | Parallels Insights

What is a Virtual Machine?

As the name suggests, a virtual machine (VM) is a virtual environment that simulates a physical machine. VMs have their own central processing unit (CPU), memory, network interface, and storage, but they are independent of physical hardware. Multiple VMs can coexist in a single physical machine without collision, as long as the hardware resources are efficiently distributed. VMs are implemented using software emulation and hardware virtualization.

Virtual Machine Types

There are two types of virtual machines organizations can use:

Process Virtual Machine

Also known as an application virtual machine, a process virtual machine supports a single process or application to run on a host OS. It is used to mask the underlying hardware or OS and execute the application just like other native applications. It is often used to provide a platform-independent programming environment. For example, Java applications are implemented using Java virtual machines (JVM). Another example is Wine software, which helps Windows applications run on Linux

Types of Virtualizations

All the components of an IT infrastructure or traditional data center can be virtualized today, with diverse kinds of virtualization being offered:

Storage Virtualization: Storage can be virtualized by consolidating multiple physical storage devices to appear as a single storage device.
Software Virtualization: The software can be virtualized by creating a computer system complete with hardware that allows one or more guest operating systems to run on a physical host machine.
Hardware Virtualization: Virtual versions of computers and operating systems (VMs) are created and consolidated into a single, primary, physical server.
Desktop Virtualization: Desktop virtualization separates the desktop environment from the physical device and stores a desktop on a remote server, allowing users to access their desktops from anywhere on any device.
Network Virtualization: Multiple sub-networks can be created on the same physical network by combining equipment into a single, software-based virtual network resource.

System Virtual Machine

A system virtual machine, or hardware virtual machine, virtualizes a complete operating system and can be used as a substitute for a physical machine. A system virtual machine shares the physical resources of the host machine but has its own OS. The virtualization process runs on a hypervisor or a virtual machine monitor running on bare hardware (native virtual machine), or on top of an OS (hosted virtual machine). VirtualBox and VMware ESXi are both examples of a system virtual machine.

Benefits of Using a Virtual Machine

A virtual machine is essentially a computer within a computer. VMs have several advantages:

Lower hardware costs. Many organizations don’t fully utilize their hardware resources. Instead of investing in another server, organizations can spin up virtual servers instead.
Quicker Desktop Provisioning and Deployment. Deploying a new physical server often takes numerous time-consuming steps. However, with virtualized systems, organizations can deploy new virtual servers quickly using secure pre-configured server templates.
Smaller Footprint. Utilizing virtualization reduces the office space needed to maintain and extend IT capabilities while also freeing up desk space to support more employees.
Enhanced Data Security. Virtualization streamlines disaster recovery by replicating your servers in the cloud. Since VMs are independent of the underlying hardware, organizations don’t need the same physical servers offsite to facilitate a secondary recovery site. In the event of a disaster, employees can be back online quickly with a cost-effective backup and disaster recovery solution.
Portability. It’s possible to seamlessly move VMs across virtual environments and even from one physical server to another, with minimal input on the part of IT teams. VMs are isolated from one another and have their own virtual hardware, making them hardware-independent. Moving physical servers to another location is a more resource-intensive task.
Improved IT Efficiency. Many IT departments spend at least half of their time managing routine administrative tasks, however with virtualization it’s possible to partition one physical server into several virtual machines—administrators can deploy and manage multiple operating systems at once from a single physical server.

Challenges in Using a Virtual Machine

VMs have a huge number of advantages, especially when people need to run more than one operating system in a single physical device. However, there are several challenges associated with using VMs:

When simultaneous VMs run on a host computer, each can introduce an unstable performance depending on the workload of the system.
The efficiency of VMs falls short compared to physical machines.
Licensing models of virtualization solutions can be tricky. They can result in huge upfront investment costs due to additional hardware requirements.
Due to the increasingly high number of breaches on VM and cloud deployments, security is an added concern.
For every virtualization solution, the infrastructure setup is complex. Small businesses have to hire experts to deploy these solutions successfully.
VMs pose data security threats when multiple users try to access the same or different VMs on the same physical host.

Similarities and Differences Between a Virtual machine and a Container

A container is a standardized unit of software that includes the code along with all its dependencies, such as system libraries, system tools, and settings. Containerized applications can be deployed quickly and reliably across all types of infrastructure. A virtual machine and a container both isolate applications so they can run on any platform. But a virtual machine differs from a container in that it virtualizes hardware to run multiple OS on a single machine. In contrast, a container packages a single application with all its dependencies so it can run on any OS.

Virtual machines run on a hypervisor and include a separate OS image, while containers on a single host share the host’s OS kernel. This makes containers extremely lightweight and reduces the management overhead as compared to virtual machines. Their portability makes them perfect for web applications and microservices. Virtual machines are not as lightweight and may take more time to boot, but they have their own OS kernel and are best suited for running multiple applications simultaneously or for legacy applications that require an older OS. Virtual machines and containers can also be used together.

How Parallels RAS helps

Parallels® Remote Application Server (RAS) is a leading virtualization solution that offers both application and desktop delivery under a single license. This all-in-one solution eliminates the need for additional hardware components. With a minimal learning curve and user-friendly interface, you don’t need experts to deploy and use Parallels RAS. Parallels RAS offers prebuilt templates to deploy to the cloud, allows auto-scaling of resources, and supports a wide range of major hypervisors. It also reduces data-loss risks and malicious activity by using policies that limit access based on user, location, group permission, and device.

Parallels RAS supports Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 140-2, Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption, and multifactor authentication (MFA) for added security. Its unified and intuitive management console, configuration wizards, and customizable tools can easily configure the remote desktop and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) solutions.

Experience how Parallels RAS overcomes the challenges of deploying virtual machines!

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