Virtualization & VMWare

Assalamualaikum..
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Virtualization
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Dear friends...
Do you know about Virtualization?
Let's start our lesson...

Hardware was the first part to be designed in a computer system. It is followed by the software
part. Each hardware was specially designed with its own instruction set and developed with its own specific software.

The need of software that is compatible with any hardware becomes an important consideration in developing a new computer system.

This can be achieved by producing hardware that has a standard feature. One way to achieve this is by defining and controlling the interface between hardware and software. This is where the concept of Instruction Set Architecture (ISA) was introduced.

A new problem arises following the introduction of ISA. The operating system developed was only compatible with the hardware from the same vendor. Due to this reason many operating systems were developed for particular system architecture only and cannot be implemented in other machines that have different architecture. For example, Windows application binaries will not directly execute on PowerPC processor.

Virtualization eliminates these constraints and enables a much higher degree of portability and flexibility. Software is added to an execution platform to produce virtualization to give it the appearance of a different platform.

Virtualization supports an operating system, instruction set, and computational resources which differ from those available on the underlying software. One of virtualization environment created by such software is called virtual machine.

Virtual Machine -----------------------

Virtual machine is defined as an efficient and isolated duplicate of a real machine. This environment is created by using Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) which provides a second layer on a machine for another operating system to run on it.

VMM reproduces everything from the CPU instruction to the I/O devices in software of operating system which it run on. Virtualization in VM involves mapping of virtual resources, for example, the register and memory to real hardware resources and it also use the host machine instruction to carry out the actions specified by VMM. This is done by emulating the host ISA.

The underlying operating system is called the host operating system. VMM runs on top of the host operating system, thus it can hold a second or more operating system on it. The operating system which runs on VMM is called the guest operating system.

The host operating system and the guest operating system can either be of the same or different type of operating system. For example, Windows can runs as the host operating system and Linux as the guest operating system.

VMWare, Connectix, UMLinux and Xen are some examples of a more recent VMM that has been developed. Another close environment which also provides virtualization is called emulator. The difference it has when compared to VMM is that it only let one guest operating system to run on the host system.

Installation of VMWare -----------------------------

VMware Workstation can be downloaded from http://www.vmware.com/download/ws/

1. Double Click on the VMware launcher to start the installation Wizards.

2. Click on [Next].

3. Choose Typical setup type.

4. Choose the location for VMware Workstation installation, example: C:\Program Files\WMware\VMware Workstation\

5. Click on [Next].

6. Configure the shortcuts for the VMware Workstation and click [Next].

7. Click on [Install], this will take several minutes to finish.

8. Enter the Serial Number for the VMware workstation.

9. Click [Finish], and restart the Computer.

VMware Workstation makes it possible for PC user to use Multiple Operating Systems concurrently on the Same PC.
User can create and run multiple virtual machine on desktop or laptop computer. VMware Workstation let you create a virtual machine that can be installed with different kinds of Operating System.

Virtual machine residing on a disk image that can be cloned and copy from one host to another host by simply drag and drop thus providing mobility to user.

Another advantage of VMware Workstation is that on the same host user can run multiple virtual machines containing different OS side by side and by just a click of a mouse you can switch to different OS and share files by just drag and drop. User can even create their own Local Area Network (LAN) inside the VMware Workstation by using several virtual machines.

The ability to preserves the state of virtual machine by taking a “snapshot” make it easier for user to do testing on virtual machine without worrying that the system will crash or corrupt. The snapshot ability let user to revert back to the OS previous state if there is any crash or corrupt occur during the testing.

Creating Disk Image -------------------------

How to create disk image in virtual machine?

1. From the home tab click on [New Virtual Machine], to open the virtual machine wizard.

2. Click [Next] to continue.

3. Choose the typical configuration, click [Next]

4. Choose the type of OS to be installed on the virtual machine. As the next task the virtual machine will be installed with Windows Server 2003, select [Microsoft Windows] as the guest. In the version list, select Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition. Click [Next].

5. Name the virtual machine and specify the location where the disk image for the virtual machine will be stored in the hard disk. Name the virtual machine as winserv03.

6. For the network type select [Use host-only Networking], this selection will create LAN between the other virtual machine. In order to make the virtual machine connected to the real
network select [Use bridged networking]. This setting can be changed once the virtual machine is created. Click [Next].

7. Specify the disk capacity of the virtual machine. This option will let user to specify the maximum storage capacity of the virtual machine. Select [Allocate disk space now] and click
[Finish] to start creating your virtual machine. This will take several minutes.

How to Install Window Server 2003 on virtual machine? -------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Place the Windows Server 2003 installer CD in your cdrom drive.

2. Click on [start the virtual machine] or you can click on the start button on the toolbar, your virtual machine is starting and will be booting from your cdrom drive.

3. Once the winserv03 booting you will see the familiar windows server 2003 installation page, from this point onward you can follow the windows server 2003 installation step.

4. After the installation process is finish, you will see the windows server 2003 login page.

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I hope you will get some informations from my page. If you have any questions, please leave me some comment then.
I pen off now..Thank you..
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