Cloud Computing and Virtualization: Difference and Use Cases

Migration to the cloud is a very big challenge for many companies. Understanding the pros and cons of cloud computing and integrating the business to ensure customer satisfaction is paramount.

Cloud computing is the service of providing resources such as data, servers, and software over a network. Today, it is this cloud technology to which most of the business operation is moving in to accelerate their businesses. We know a lot about ‘Cloud Computing’ but another related topic is ‘Virtualization’ that many of us are not aware of.

So, today I will give you some insights which will help in solving the conflict of ‘Cloud Computing’ and ‘Virtualization’.

Before we dive deep, let us understand a few basic cloud computing concepts.

Cloud computing enables convenient, on-demand network access to a pool of shared configurable computing resources that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort. Some of these resources include tools and applications like data storage, servers, databases, networking and software.

To save the local or hard drive storage, cloud-based storage helps in saving them on a remote database. It is a go-to option for many people, including business for various reasons like increased productivity, speed, efficiency, cost savings, performance and security

Now, let us get to Virtualization. 

Virtualization uses software that creates an extra layer above the computer hardware that would allow the hardware elements like processors, memory, storage, etc. of a single computer to be divided into multiple virtual computers, commonly known as virtual machines (VMs). This helps in installing multiple OS, multiple software and multiple applications on the same physical machine.

Every Virtual Machine has it is own operating system and behaves as an independent computer even though it runs on just a portion of underlying computer hardware.

Cloud computing Vs Virtualization:

The below table gives us the key differences between cloud computing and virtualization.

Cloud computing applications can run every software/ program just as a normal computer would. The application of cloud computing is vast and spread in myriad verticals from healthcare, EdTech to e-commerce and social media. Let us have a look at some of the use cases of virtualization.

Use cases – Virtualization

5G Preparation

Virtualization software makes it possible to deliver any type of telecom service by enabling services and application instantly. In the existing network infrastructure involving very static and lots of hardware, virtualization provides flexibility and introduces an important change in it. Network slicing is another feature crucial to 5G as it allows sharing of resources in an elastic way.

Dev & Test environments

Virtualization technology provides a platform of self-service portals to developers, making the resource usage visible and having a streamlined resource provisioning and management. This would help in optimising the Dev & Test environments. Tools are also provided to reduce the cost in the nonproduction environments. It also increases speed and visibility to reduce the risk with resource usage.

Consolidating Servers

A high-performance platform is provided by virtualization based on interoperable open and standard-based technology. It ensures live migration, restarts on priority making it highly available. Support for the third-party tools is also provided in case of backup and restoration. Simplification of operations is done by centralizing the compute, network and storage resources.

Benefits of Virtualization technologies:

• Due to the fact, there’s minimal hardware utilization, the cost is much cheaper.
• Reduced downtime as replicas is available to be cloned, especially in case of disaster recovery.
• Much environment friendly as no energy is required to cool as in data centre and moreover reduces the carbon footprint.

Making the right choice:

Both cloud computing and virtualization have their own pros and cons depending on certain factors like scalability, volume and security.

Cloud computing is a good solution for a growing business if you are looking for IT resources elsewhere. In case you are looking into the scalability of your business website, or flexibility with greater storage space then Cloud computing is a wise choice.

On the other hand, if you are looking for an underutilized server, looking to cut down the cost then you may go with Virtualization. Also, with Virtualization, you can work with customizable servers and limited storage space.

CloudThat provides cloud computing services for expert advisory and accelerated delivery to their world-class consulting partners. Here are the top projects successfully completed by CloudThat’s team of experts. Cloud computing courses can also give candidates the necessary plummet to have successful careers as cloud experts.

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The top cloud service vendors in the market are AWS, Microsoft (Azure) and Google Cloud (GCP) and CloudThat provide online classroom training with hands-on labs for cloud enthusiasts. Check out the course page and pick your choice, of course, to get ahead of your career.

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Get in touch with us for any of your cloud computing/ cloud migration needs. Feel free to drop in a query or a requirement for your organization and our cloud experts will get in touch with you quickly.

WRITTEN BY CloudThat

CloudThat is a leading provider of cloud training and consulting services, empowering individuals and organizations to leverage the full potential of cloud computing. With a commitment to delivering cutting-edge expertise, CloudThat equips professionals with the skills needed to thrive in the digital era.