Discussion - 4 - Response to Peers

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System virtualization software encapsulates the software layer on the operating system, and it offers the same benefits of the operating system, including performance, storage, and networking behavior expected from the physical hardware. For system virtualization, these types of software are called Virtual machines. In the market, there are many virtual machine providers available. The organization can use its service without deploying real hardware for their requirements. Virtual machines are special software that operates on top of the operating system but still provides most of its features. So, using virtual machines, users can operate multiples other operating systems on the same hardware and leverage the benefits of hardware. This discussion will focus on the benefits of using virtual machines (Pearce & Zeadely & Hunt, 2013).

To mitigate security threats, users can leverage the benefits of virtual machines. In a situation where multiple systems are required mitigating the threats, an organization can deploy the single hardware with more resources and install the virtual machines there. By doing so, organizations don’t need to maintain multiple hardware and still achieve the same functionality of multiple operating systems. Apart from that, there is another use case, in a situation where running a software application requires multiple different operating systems. For example, some old legacy applications might not support all its features on Linux. It requires the windows to support features. In this case, the organization can deploy the virtual machine and install Linux as well as Windows operating system on the same hardware.

As we know, that virtual machine separates itself from the physical machine, the user can take advantage of security threats. Integrating the third-party application to our system is a security risk. Users can deploy these types of applications to their virtual machines, where they are not sure about the application’s source. Users can always take the virtual machine snapshot and reverse it. (Pearce & Zeadely & Hunt, 2013).

Moreover, virtual machines store data in very fewer files; it is very easy for the user to clone the system to another computer. This feature is very helpful for an organization for testing and debugging the application. Also, for quick deployment of the same machine, we can clone it to multiple machines in very short times. Also, virtual machines are considered a cost-effective solution for many IT organizations. They use the virtual machine to adjust the overhead of the infrastructure budget (Stegner, 2020).

References

Pearce, Michael & Sherali, Zeadely & Ray Hunt. (March 2013). Virtualization: Issue, security threats and solutions. Retrieved from https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2431211.2431216.

Ben, Stegner. (April 06, 2020). 7 practical reasons to start using a virtual machine. Retrieved from https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/reasons-start-using-virtual-machine/.