Peas in a Pod

The evolution of computing has taken us from room-sized computers to mainframes of more manageable sizes (e.g., IBM’s recent z15, spanning from single-frame to four-frame) to compact rack servers running type-1 hypervisors hosting virtual machines. But don’t be fooled into thinking virtualized computing is a recent evolution, as IBM’s System/360 from the 1960s was capable of full virtualization. The virtual machine (VM) concept allows us to run a slew of virtual servers on a single physical server (a host) running a type-1 (bare metal) [1] hypervisor like VMware’s ESXi. Read more...