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Part of an emerging family of containment technologies, server virtualization is designed to help reduce server sprawl — the proliferation of individual hardware servers and accompanying management and resource allocation problems. Today, IT managers and executives are starting to consider a variety of virtualization and containment technologies available on Microsoft Windows, Linux, the Solaris Operating System and other environments. There is also renewed interest among industry and academic researchers in this area, as virtualization is a key technology in the deployment of both computational and business service grid architectures. However, significant confusion remains regarding the terminology and techniques involved, as well as the trade-offs among the range of current solutions.

This article focuses on the motivation behind server-oriented containment and virtualization — secure, efficient, and cost-effective workload management — and discusses the concepts, vocabulary, and techniques currently available to help achieve it. Other forms of virtualization, such as those used for storage and networks, are not discussed. Directed at IT managers, CIOs, and CTOs responsible for computer resource allocation decisions, this article assumes general familiarity with IT infrastructure and management issues, and provides an overview of various solutions. Detailed technical knowledge of the techniques presented is not required. The first section reviews the requirements and challenges of workload management. Subsequent sections discuss the origins of virtualization and containment, currently available solutions and trade-offs, and a brief discussion of future technologies.

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