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Virtualizing the Datacenter Without Compromising Server Performance

Ubiquity, Volume 2009 Issue August | BY Faouzi Kamoun 

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Virtualization has become a hot topic. Cloud computing is the latest and most prominent application of this time-honored idea, which is almost as old as the computing field itself. The term "cloud" seems to have originated with someone's drawing of the Internet as a puffy cloud hiding many servers and connections. A user can receive a service from the cloud without ever knowing which machine (or machines) rendered the service, where it was located, or how many redundant copies of its data there are. One of the big concerns about the cloud is that it may assign many computational processes to one machine, thereby making that machine a bottleneck and giving poor response time. Faouzi Kamoun addresses this concern head on, and assures us that in most cases the virtualization used in the cloud and elsewhere improves performance. He also addresses a misconception made prominent in a Dilbert cartoon, when the boss said he wanted to virtualize the servers to save electricity.


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Virtualizing the Datacenter Without Compromising Server Performance

Published: 01 August 2009 Publication History

Abstract

Virtualization has become a hot topic. Cloud computing is the latest and most prominent application of this time-honored idea, which is almost as old as the computing field itself. The term "cloud" seems to have originated with someone's drawing of the Internet as a puffy cloud hiding many servers and connections. A user can receive a service from the cloud without ever knowing which machine (or machines) rendered the service, where it was located, or how many redundant copies of its data there are. One of the big concerns about the cloud is that it may assign many computational processes to one machine, thereby making that machine a bottleneck and giving poor response time. Faouzi Kamoun addresses this concern head on, and assures us that in most cases the virtualization used in the cloud and elsewhere improves performance. He also addresses a misconception made prominent in a Dilbert cartoon, when the boss said he wanted to virtualize the servers to save electricity.

References

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[3]
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cover image Ubiquity
Ubiquity  Volume 2009, Issue August
August 2009
17 pages
EISSN:1530-2180
DOI:10.1145/1595422
Issue’s Table of Contents
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 01 August 2009
Published in UBIQUITY Volume 2009, Issue August

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