Virtualization Lab: Part 2 – Concepts and Terminology
Welcome to part two of my Virtualization Lab series. If you haven’t read part one, I would recommend reading it first.
In this post I want to go over the concepts and terms that are used so frequently. Understanding the gist of virtualization will help lay a steady foundation upon which advanced topics seem more natural and intuitive.
Commonly used terms:
Host – This term is used to describe the operating system and physical computer that exists and runs virtual software/hardware.
Guest – This term is used when referring to a virtual computer or operating system which is running on a host system.
VM – a Virtual Machine is the same thing as a guest and is used much more frequently.
Hypervisor: A hypervisor is a lower level operating system that exists somewhere between the physical hardware and the VM’s. A hypervisor usually takes the place of your user system and is essentially a small highly optimized operating system for running virtual machines.
P2V: This acronym stands for Physical to Virtual. P2V conversions are great when they work and help convert current systems into a VM.
There are many other terms and acronyms out there, but these are the most common.
Where to start:
For the absolute beginner and most others, I recommend installing VirtualBox which can be downloaded here. Go ahead and get VirtualBox installed since we will be going over it in more detail in part three of this series. You will also need to download a .iso file for next weeks post. I will be installing Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope 32bit which can be downloaded from here.
–Himuraken