Best Virtualization Software

Virtualization Software refers to the formation of a virtual computing resource like a computer, server, or other hardware modules, or a software-based resource like an operating system. The most popular example of virtualization software is separating a hard disk through OS installation, where the physical hard drive is divided into numerous logical disks to offer superior data storage and recovery (a type known as 'data virtualization').

Virtualization software is the concept of IT resources that hides the physical environment and boundaries of those resources from users.

Market Overview

The Virtualization Software Market is projected to reach US $ 33.76 billion by 2025, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.2%. Virtualization software supports in improved recovery of enterprises throughout man-made or natural disasters. It permits for different and fewer hardware at the disaster recovery site. Therefore, it enables easier failover and recovery.

The virtualization software market is likely to gain from the move that the organizations are making to cut energy consumption, enhance hardware efficiency, and improve sustainability with the help of virtualization software.

According to Spiceworks, application virtualization is likely to witness the highest growth among virtualization technologies with implementation projected to increase from 39% in 2019 to 56% by 2021. As compared to small businesses, double as many enterprises have implemented application virtualization.

The ease of handling the IT infrastructure and its elements, both hardware and software, has improved the usage of virtualization software among the end-users. The advent of cloud services has further enhanced the virtualization software applications in the hardware virtualization software segment. Communication and networking needs have increased the demand for network virtualization in the worldwide market.

The network virtualization market is likely to get more attention from the solution providers with the emphasis on 5G introduction in services, throughout the world. Broadband, fiber network, and other comparable network related solution offer a new prospect for the players in the market.

Owing to the outbreak of COVID 19 pandemic, many companies are urging employees to work from home, which is turning out to be useful for the vendors. This is possible due to rising number of customers and organizations are approaching to these vendors for guidance and support, to allow secure remote-work initiatives, that makes sure the safety and productivity of their employees and to preserve ongoing business operations during this emerging global crisis.

For example, from past few weeks, Citrix has published remote work best-practices and examples from customers across the globe using its virtualization software and workspace software solutions to ensure safe and reliable remote access to the software applications.

Storage Virtualization software to expand at a substantial rate

Virtualizing software the storage has become obligatory, since many enterprise resources are decentralizing and rising in volume. It is also known virtual SAN or Software Defined Storage.

Storage virtualization software can permit many storage units to be merged in one. Moreover, it can eliminate any physical storage in view. It is supportive for the organizations, that pay extra in hardware or for the companies who cannot meet SLA, owing to lack of storage facilities.

As per DOMO's Data Never Sleeps 6.0 Report, Amazon dispatched around 1,111 packages per minute, the Weather Channel collected nearly 180,55,555 forecast requests per minute, and Google performed approximately 38,77,140 requests per minute in 2018. To store the growing amount of data, hardware devices are insufficient.

Storage virtualization software products, like IBM's SAN Volume Controller (SVC) and Hitachi Data Systems Corp.'s USP V, state to virtualize various types and brands of storage systems, making them possibly helpful to companies that have undertaken a merger or acquisition.

The market for the virtualization software is mainly dominated by key players, like VMware, Oracle, and Microsoft, which provide virtualization software utilized by all large and small enterprises. Collaborations, like Dell with Microsoft and VMware, permit easier IT operations.

March 2020 - Microsoft has declared the acquisition of Affirmed Networks, a startup that provides fully virtualized, cloud-native mobile network software solutions. Microsoft intends to combine Affirmed Networks’ technology into Microsoft Azure to allow the telecommunications business implement and maintain 5G networks through the cloud instead of just hardware and software.

December 2019 - Red Hat, Inc., revived the FIPS 140-2 security validations for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7.6. Determined by the NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology), FIPS 140-2 is a computer security standard that identifies the needs for cryptographic modules. Red Hat Virtualization also uses the FIPS 140-2 re-validated cryptography component.

The MicroQuadrant matrix by 360Quadrants offers exhaustive information about the Virtualization Software vendors. It offers comprehensive summary explaining the inferences and analysis of how well each vendor performs within the predefined MicroQuadrant standards. The vendor evaluations are classified on 2 broad factors, i.e. Product Maturity and Company Maturity. The vendors have been evaluated based on parameters studied under the Product Maturity and Company maturity. Parameters included under product maturity are key product offerings & services, features, product innovation, deployment model, pricing options, and support services. The parameters included under the company maturity are regional presence, industry verticals catered, partner ecosystem, and inorganic strategies like mergers & acquisitions, and joint ventures.

Visionary Leaders provide a strong product portfolio to their clients. These companies majorly invest in R&D to launch pioneering products in the Virtualization Software. These companies have a strong global presence and adopted several organic and inorganic strategies to achieve continuous and progressive growth in the Virtualization Software market.

Dynamic Differentiators have a wide network of channel partners and resellers to improve the deployment of their solutions. By implementing the strong organic and inorganic business strategies, dynamic differentiators have been continuously generating positive revenue growth in the Virtualization Software.

Innovators in the Virtualization Software space provide innovative solutions and they also have an extensive range of product offerings. By offering niche and customized software requirements to the clients, the innovators have been at the forefront in deploying their solutions.

The emerging vendors in the Virtualization Software space offer customized and focused Virtualization Software to their clients. Emerging players always adopt new ways of working to drive business outcomes in the market.

What are the different types of Virtualization Software?

1. Desktop Virtualization - The virtualization software of the desktop, also known as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI), is wherever a desktop operating system, such as Windows 7, will operate as a virtual machine on a physical server with more virtual desktops. The management of various virtual desktops happens on one or a few physical servers, usually at the centralized data center. The copy of the operating system and applications that every end-user use will normally be cached in memory as one single image on the physical server.

Going back to the IBM mainframe period in the 1960s, every user would utilize the mainframe to do the centralized processing for their terminal session, thus the user’s setting comprised of a keyboard and a non-color monitor with all of the processing occurring back on the centralized mainframe. But, in the 1990s, IT began to migrate to the cost-efficient desktop system where every user would have a physical computer, comprising of a keyboard, color monitor, and mouse, with complete processing and the operating system operating locally, through the physical desktop’s CPU and physical RAM rather than using the centralized mainframe to do the processing.

In the current VDI marketplace, there are two major vendors, VMware, and Citrix, competing to become the key player in the desktop virtualization software marketplace. Both vendors can launch graphic displays with a quick response from the mainframe. The desktops include a mouse, and both solutions create the end-user experience since the remote desktop is local. Hence, there is no difference in the performance of the remote desktop, and the end-user accesses their applications if they were using a physical desktop. Both VMware and Citrix each have a solid footprint and are the most-used options for desktop virtualization in organizations today.

2. Application Virtualization - It is a type of virtualization software that utilizes software to bundle an application into a single executable and operate anywhere. The virtualization software application is divided from the operating system and operates in a sandbox. Virtualizing the application lets things like the registry and configuration changes to seem to operate in the core operating system, though they are actually running in the sandbox. Application Virtualization software is divided into 2 types- Remote Application and Streaming Application.

Remote Application can run on a server, and the customer uses a kind of remote display procedure to connect back to the customer machine. Since many system managers and users have fair experience running remotely, it can be easy to set up remote displays for applications.

Streaming Application enables you to operate one copy of the application on the server, and then have many customers desktops access and operate the streaming application locally. Streaming Application enables you to upgrade the process easier, as you just established another streaming application through the new form and have the end-users point to the new type of the application.

3. Server Virtualization - This type of virtualization software permits for many virtual machines to operate on one physical server. The virtual servers distribute the resources of the physical server, which results in better consumption of the physical server resources. CPU, storage, memory, and networking are the resources that are shared by virtual machines. All these resources are supplied to the virtual machines via hypervisor of the physical server. The hypervisor is the OS and software that run on the sandbox. Every virtual machine runs autonomously of the other virtual machines on a similar box. The virtual machines may have various operating systems and are separated from each other. The server virtualization software offers a means to strengthen applications that were running on individual physical servers, and currently with the help of hypervisor software runs on the same physical server signified by virtual machines. Server virtualization software is one of the most popular virtualizations software, owing to VMware’s vSphere, which has a huge percentage of the marketplace. Moreover, some of the other vendors providing server virtualization software are, Citrix, Microsoft, and Red Hat.

4. Storage Virtualization - It is the procedure of classifying physical storage through software to signify what seems to be a single storage device in a virtual format. Connections can be seen between storage virtualization and traditional virtual machines, as both take over physical hardware and resources and summarize access to them. There is a variation between a traditional virtual machine and storage virtualization. A virtual machine is a group of files, whereas storage virtualization software usually functions in memory on the storage controller that is developed using the software.

A type of storage virtualization software has been integrated into storage features for several years. Functionalities like RAID and Snapshots take physical disks and represent them in a virtual format. These functionalities can offer a format to assist with the performance or add termination to the storage that is submitted to the host as a volume. The host perceives the volume as a big disk, which fits the depiction of storage virtualization.

The storage collection vendors have executed storage virtualization inside the operating system of their respective ranges. This kind of storage virtualization is known as internal storage virtualization. Moreover, there is external storage virtualization software that is executed by a few vendors.

5. Network Virtualization- Network virtualization software refers to the usage of software to operate network functionality by dissociating the virtual networks from the core network hardware. Once you begin using network virtualization, the physical network is just utilized for packet forwarding, so entire management is done via virtual or software-based switches. For instance, during VMware’s ESX server gained popularity, it comprised a virtual switch that permitted sufficient network management and data transfer to occur inside of the ESX host. This concept shift captured the eye of Cisco, therefore when VMware was updating to vSphere 4.0, Cisco assisted to create the code for VMware’s new Distributed Switch. This facilitated Cisco to learn the way to work and design network virtualization, and an internal group began to write all the Cisco switches to be software-based administrative units.

What are the key benefits of Virtualization Software?

Your resources are finite. Virtualization software allows you to get more value from the resources you have. It enables you to perform more software and achieve more processes with the same amount of hardware.

1. Back it on up - Virtualization software makes Backing up your complete OS or server installation as easy as backing up a cluster of files is possible with Virtualization. That is due to your virtual OS is only a series of files.

For instance, a hacker takes down your mail server. If you have been operating it on a virtual machine, you can only restore the old version.

2. Run a different OS - If you are using Windows every day but you are desperate to try Linux. Or you possess an application that is compatible only for Mac OS. Sure, you could redivide your computer’s hard drive. But the initial step to doing that should be taking a snap of your computer. Later you must be concern about if the computer will let you drop it enough.

Possessing a desktop version of Linux for infrequent use prevents the need to install PuTTY on Windows. Linux can communicate via a secure shell (SSH) built-in. And if your mail or Web services are based on Linux, virtualization software will help you make communication with the server easier.

3. Run ancient apps – Virtualization Software enables you to include installing apps on old operating systems. For example, you have got a program that is compatible only with Windows 8, but you upgraded to Windows 10. No worries using virtualization software you can run Windows 8 on the same computer.

4. Look at corrupt files – The Virtualization Software also lets you generate a snapshot of your computer. This implies that it can save all the settings and hard drive contents in another part of the computer. Thus, you can modify a small part of the computer without making any changes to the rest. Additionally, it allows you to easily reverse those changes by reverting to the earlier state.

For instance, you get a file that you really want to read or watch over or listen to, but it is corrupted with a virus. If you take a snapshot of your system before opening the file, you can view/watch over/listen to the file and then return to your saved version.

5. Safeguard your computer from browser stank - Hackers have been successful in exploiting most popular browsers — Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. It is essential to keep your computer safe from browser hacks by operating your browser of choice in a sandbox. Right from Tor to Firefox, even if your browser or plugin gets hacked, your computer will be secured with virtualization. Like the corrupted file, a snapshot reinstates everything to normal even if a hack happens.

6. Try an application on for size – Interested to check how a new program or application will relate with your other applications without uninstalling and reinstalling each application if they cannot perform properly? If you generate a copy of a current installation of an OS and its data, you can operate a virtualized instance and ensure configuration changes or updates won’t tangle anything up without placing your actual installation and data at risk.

7. Other benefits

Virtualization software can also enhance disaster recovery, load balancing, and software testing; decrease hardware expenses; save energy, and decrease the physical size of your firm’s data center.

The final fact of Virtualization Software is flexibility.

The Virtualization Software allows Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). In this set-up, a business organization hosts clients’ hardware, servers, software, storage, and other infrastructure elements. Users just pay for what they use in an hour, week, or month. IaaS build resources highly scalable according to requirement, which is good for short-term or experimental workloads and workloads that can change suddenly.

What are the challenges in implementing Virtualization Software?

Here are a few common challenges faced while implementing and managing a virtual environment-

1. Discovering new VMs - Finding and adding new VMs into a network can become tedious, particularly when you must add credentials personally for each VM. This is when an automated discovery becomes useful as you can generate multiple credentials and include all those devices at the same time. Several network management solutions also support one-click discovery, where as soon as you add the vCenter or the subsequent hypervisor, all the VMs below them are auto-detected.

2. VM sprawl - This occurs when the number of VMs in a situation that goes beyond a certain controllable number; VM sprawl can greatly affect the functioning of your virtual devices. Unused or idle VMs consume too much of the virtualization server’s CPU and memory, causing a lag or insensitivity inactive VMs. VM sprawl can also cause security gaps.

3. Resource allocation - Allotment of processing power and memory VMs should be appropriately planned and requests a great understanding of how your network is developing. Over-allocation or under-allocation storage space for VMs not only greatly impacts performance, but also hampers the formation of new VMs in your environment when you face storage. Apart from this, unused VMs or VM disk kernels should be continuously supervised and eliminated so that your network storage is enhanced.

4. Monitoring VM performance - Many network monitoring software do not support VM monitoring, and thus needs a distinct tool to fulfill that purpose. This complicates the network and may cause devices to be left unmonitored. A comprehensive VM monitoring solution will go a long way in assisting you to get the finest performance out of your network.

How does Virtualization Software work?

Virtualization software defines a technology where an application, guest operating system (guest OS), or data storage is extracted from the real core hardware or software. The main usage of virtualization technology is server virtualization, which utilizes a software layer – known as a hypervisor -- to imitate the core hardware. This generally comprises the input/output (I/O), CPU's memory, and network traffic. Hypervisors take on the physical resources and divide them so they can be used by the virtual environment. They can be placed on top of an Operating System or they can be directly deployed onto the hardware. Most of the enterprises virtualize their systems by this method.

The Xen Virtualization Software is an open-source software program that is accountable for controlling the low-level interactions that take place between virtual machines (VMs) and the physical hardware. This implies, the Xen hypervisor enables you for the simultaneous formation, implementation, and supervision of various virtual machines in a single physical environment.

The guest OS which generally interacts with true hardware, but with the support of the hypervisor, is now interacting with a software simulation of that hardware; usually, the guest OS has no notion it is on virtualized hardware. While the implementation of this virtual system is not the same as the implementation of the OS running on true core hardware, the idea of virtualization software operates as the majority guest operating systems and applications don't require the complete use of the core hardware. This lets for greater flexibility, control, and separation by eliminating the dependence on a given hardware platform. While primarily meant for server virtualization, the idea of virtualization has spread to networks, data, applications, and desktops.

What are the key features of Virtualization Software?

1. Stability – It would be really bad software if it crashes when you press a button on its window. If it is unable to maintain enough stability to allow you to run the virtual machines the manner you want it to, it would be better to avoid it and move for another edition of the same software or entirely different software. For instance, if you are operating a Linux system and a virtual machine crashes when you attempt to take snapshots. In such cases, it is always better to install a different virtualization software instead of trying to destroy things by operating the crashed software. It is just a matter of choosing a stable software. Talking of stability in the same line, there is rather you should know there are few software’s that can throw up somewhat a few errors only because you did not install and configure it properly. Having improperly configured software is distinct from having an unstable one. Software that is not configured well will tend to give problems before you start running a virtual machine on it; while unstable software would crash and shut down itself after you have begun working. Thus, be careful and go for the software that provides the utmost stability.

2. Lower resource usage - Virtualization Software using too much memory may leave smaller headroom for the actual virtual machine you need to operate. If you do not possess too much RAM and one of a strong processor on your system, it would hardly matter. The additional resource consumption by the virtualization software will leave very little room for the actual virtual machine and things will start getting slow. Thus, it is important that you must select the software that does the work you want it to and keeps it as easy as possible on your system.

3. Great support for virtual hardware in use – The Virtualization Software would imitate the hardware. If it imitates something that the guest operating system you would like to install cannot recognize or utilize, it becomes worthless to try imitating such hardware. Most of the time, complete hardware right from the processor and disks to network and display adapters are usually recognizable by most guest operating systems. But, if you are trying to operate a Legacy OS like Windows 98 while imitating a SATA disk or a dual-core processor, you will be in trouble. The Virtualization Software you are seeking to operate the guest OS must imitate different types of hardware interfaces and features. This should adopt the newest technologies as well as conventional hardware interfaces. Obviously, this varies on your usage. Hence, if you are not going to operate Windows 98 or the unique Linux kernel created by Linus in the early ’90s, do not worry, most virtualization software can accomplish your job. Additionally, some virtualization has support for 3D and 2D acceleration. All this will assist you in getting a better response from the guest OS.

4. Networking facilities - There are lots of options with networks. You may want to test how a computer performs over the network. You may even want to build a program and test if it can communicate over the network. You may probably want to learn the ninja methods of networking and so on. That sounds great but may not work well as you assume if you have inadequate virtualization software which does not provide you lot of options. Based on the software usage, you may just be able to imitate an ethernet connection or wireless network connection. You would be permitted to imitate various networking interface kinds on different virtual network adapters. Based on your needs, move ahead, and choose the best one. If you are just trying to be able to browse the net within the virtual machine, most virtualization can enable that.

5. Guest operating system support - Windows is distinct from Linux Even. BSD is not Linux. Windows XP and Windows 7 also perform in a different way. Windows 98 would be unfamiliar to all the ones cited till now. Different operating systems perform differently and have different hardware requirements. Though virtualization just imitates the hardware, informing it the OS you are about to utilize is a Guest will still help you. It supports the software control of the “recommended” resource distribution to be done like hard disk space, memory to be assigned, the volume of video memory, hardware accelerations, etc. The virtual machine software would give superior performance once you inform it about the guest OS than if you do not. For instance, although Windows depends on Registry strongly, Linux relies on configuration files. Both perform the same function but the frequency and pace with which the access is needed is different. Additionally, the file systems usage by them may differ. Most virtualization software allows you to know the type and version of the operating system you are attempting to use inside it. Additionally, the performance would be marginally higher if you offered the correct information. Another point to contemplate is the 64-bit support for the guest OS. Although in the majority of cases you can operate a 32-bit guest OS on a 64-bit host machine, it Is not simple to do this when the situation is overturned. It would be difficult to run a 32-bit processor in a 64-bit mode. Although some of the virtualization software supports this request, few of them support it experimentally only and others do not support it in any way. The absence of support for such features can certainly cost you severely on your performance or stability. You may encounter freezes, corrupted drivers, crashes, and death of screens. Hence, it is crucial to take care of such issues and explore and search well on the internet before you try them out.

6. Snapshots – Same as a picture shows the environment or the scene the way it was when you snapped it, a snapshot of a virtual machine is a method to show the machine’s state the way it was when you captured it. It is one of the most vital features for those who like experimentation. A snapshot in terms of a virtual machine is the means to save a virtual machine’s state.

When you take the snapshot, the virtualization freezes the virtual hard disk file and the configuration of the machine at the time you captured it. It also makes sure that everything you do after that point does not alter the files. Instead, it creates new files which it utilizes to save the new changes made and the changes you do in the configuration of the machine. When we say the files were “frozen”, it means that it was ensured that those files were not modified. Later, you can use the feature in the best virtualization software you are using to return to that snapshot. When you revert to a snapshot you captured earlier, you get the machine the way it was when you captured the snapshot. For instance, if you had a file on the guest OS when you took that snapshot, but erased it after taking the snapshot, the file would be rebuilt. The settings would be as you left them, and the virtual machine would perform as if it were never altered at all. This is because the virtual hard disk files were frozen when the snapshot was captured.

To get the most advantages out of snapshots, take a snapshot as quickly as you have made valuable alterations to the virtual machine that you do not want to lose. This will enable you to have many states and you will have a lot of liberty to select the state of the machine you need to go back to. In case you believe that you do not need so many of them, you can remove the extra states you do not need to go back to. This will help manage things well so that you do not get confused by so many snapshots.

Snapshots are really vital feature to consider for in virtualization software if you plan to use virtual machines that need you to make plenty of changes in the guest OS while making sure that you can go back in time to a state where things were fine. It would usually include software development and testing a variety of applications and operating systems.

7. Remote accessibility - This feature may not be a priority for most people who intend to use virtual machines on their home PCs for fun and experimentation. It might, though, be extremely useful to those who would like to use VMs for remotely working on their computers. For instance, if you possess multiple computers at home and would like to work with a virtual machine deployed on your desktop PC from inside the luxury of a blanket on your laptop, this element is for you. It may also be a fantastic way to manage the VM deployed on your home PC from your office or vice versa. Even Though the remote access feature is mainly useful for work, it could also be a lifesaver even if you are utilizing it for experimentation. For instance, if, you need a critical file such as a passport photocopy for some urgent government work. Although most common virtualization software at present have this feature, it is better to understand the risks you are up against when using it. Anyone can access your virtual machines except you have some mechanism to protect access.

8. Guest add-ons – tools and drivers - Guest add-ons or tools are a group of drivers essentially provided by the best virtualization software for ease of use of virtual machines. This usually includes the display driver working as a key element. They also enable better network operations within the virtual machine, quicker responses to input, quicker processing, etc. Except the software has these add-ons, do not anticipate a very pleasant experience. One of the greatest lags would be with the display, which would be too slow. In some cases when the virtualization software supports 3D acceleration to a great extent, not being able to connect the guest tools or add-ons is going to restrict your experience quite a lot. This would not only be able to run any graphical software within the VM, but the complete experience would also be affected. Occasionally, these add-ons are also essential to play audio inside your guest OS.