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Hypervisor

Hypervisor

The hypervisor mechanism is a fundamental part of virtualization infrastructure that is primarily used to generate virtual server instances of a physical server. A hypervisor is generally limited to one physical server and can therefore only create virtual images of that server (Figure 1). Similarly, a hypervisor can only assign the virtual servers it generates to resource pools that reside on the same underlying physical server. A hypervisor has limited virtual server management features, such as increasing the virtual server’s capacity or shutting it down. The VIM provides a range of features for administering multiple hypervisors across physical servers.

Figure 1 – Virtual servers are created via individual hypervisors on individual physical servers. All three hypervisors are jointly controlled by the same VIM.

Hypervisor software can be installed directly in bare-metal servers and provides features for controlling, sharing and scheduling the usage of hardware resources, such as processor power, memory, and I/O. These can appear to each virtual server’s operating system as dedicated resources.

Related Patterns:

CCP Module 4: Fundamental Cloud Architecture

This mechanism is covered in CCP Module 4: Fundamental Cloud Architecture.

For more information regarding the Cloud Certified Professional (CCP) curriculum, visit www.arcitura.com/ccp.

Cloud Computing: Concepts, Technology & Architecture

This cloud computing mechanism is covered in:

Cloud Computing: Concepts, Technology & Architecture by Thomas Erl, Zaigham Mahmood,
Ricardo Puttini

(ISBN: 9780133387520, Hardcover, 260+ Illustrations, 528 pages)

For more information about this book, visit www.arcitura.com/books.