Virtualization technology: Past, present, and future

Abstract

Effective sharing and utilization of machine resources have been an active research area since the early days of computing. Virtualization technology was a popular way toward effective resource sharing some four decades ago. It was later replaced by time-sharing systems which incur lower computing overhead. Recent advances in computing platform performance brought virtualization technology back to the main stage. Furthermore, innovations in architecture support for virtualization made many exciting usage models possible. In this presentation I will examine what the field had accomplished in the past. I will then briefly review the wide array of current virtualization technologies and how they are being deployed. I will conclude by projecting where future virtualization technologies might take us. © 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.