Virtualization technologies and platforms: Comparative overview and updated performance tests

Abstract

Virtualization technologies in building server IT infrastructure are used almost everywhere, to solve a variety of practical problems: from increasing the density of IT resources and services on physical hardware, to building various types of computing clouds. Choosing the right type of virtualization, as well as the specific virtualization platform, is a strategic decision for organizations. Such a choice should be made taking into account many parameters and features of the investigated technologies and virtualization platforms, a list of which is given in this article. The article contains the results of the author's analysis of statistical data on the popularity of various types of virtualization technologies of operating systems and applications used currently in the corporate environment. For the most popular types and technologies of virtualization of operating systems and applications, there were carried out a number of field experiments in order to compare their performance in three aspects: in the speed of launching a virtual environment, in the performance of working with data storage, and in the performance of working with a network. Based on the results of field experiments, the authors have refined their previously developed best possible scenarios for using each of the most popular types of virtualization of operating systems and applications. The suggested by authors best scenarios of usage of each type of virtualization are advisable to implement when choosing a technology or platform for virtualizing operating systems or applications.