Virtualization has become one those solutions that hasn’t been destroyed by its buzzword hype. In fact it has led to another solution surrounded by buzzwords, Cloud Computing. Being mainly a Linux user, I have used virtual desktops and servers in both my personal and professional work.

I first started using virtualization when the Workstation product from VMware was first on the scene. As recent Mac owners now know, using a virtual machine to access those needed Windows applications while maintaining the use of one’s main operating system is an amazing tool.

Since then, I have used or toyed with VMware server, OpenVZ, qemu, VirtualBox, Boschs, user-mode-linux, and PearPC to run Mac OS 8 for fun.

At Hosting Nation we use virtual computing in a number of ways. On our Linux desktops we use VMware Workstation to run those few Windows programs that we need, e.g. Internet Explorer for browser testing.

Currently I’m trying out the new Unity feature of Workstation 6.5, something I’ve had various levels of success with using qemu and VirtualBox with rdesktop. We use a combination of OpenVZ and VMware Server on the server side. They are mainly used for simulating live server environments and custom configurations. We also use VMware Server to evaluate systems that have Virtual Appliances available. I am also hoping to get a Xen system running internally and maybe in the future a Hosting Nation offering. Xen is one of the major virtualization systems used by VPS providers and cloud computing environments like Amazon’s EC2.

Randall Donald is the system administrator for Hosting Nation Data Inc.  Hosting Nation provides hosting packages and hosted applications to everyone.