What is an hypervisor #

A hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM), is a software or hardware component that enables the creation and management of virtual machines (VMs). Its primary purpose is to allow multiple operating systems (OS) and applications to run independently on a single physical host machine. The hypervisor abstracts the underlying hardware, creating a virtualized environment in which each VM operates as if it were running on a dedicated physical server.

Here are key concepts related to hypervisors and their purposes:

Isolation: One of the fundamental purposes of a hypervisor is to provide strong isolation between virtual machines. Each VM runs independently, unaware of the presence of other VMs on the same host. This isolation ensures that issues or failures in one VM do not affect others, enhancing security and reliability.
Resource Sharing: Hypervisors efficiently allocate and manage physical hardware resources such as CPU, memory, storage, and network interfaces among multiple VMs. Resources can be dynamically adjusted to meet the changing demands of each VM.
Consolidation: Hypervisors enable server consolidation by allowing multiple VMs to share the same physical server hardware. This can lead to better resource utilization, cost savings, and reduced physical server infrastructure.
Isolation of Workloads: Different VMs can run various operating systems and applications, making it possible to consolidate diverse workloads onto a single physical server. For example, you can run Windows and Linux VMs side by side on the same host.
Testing and Development: Hypervisors are invaluable for testing and development environments. Developers can create and test applications in isolated VMs without impacting the production environment. It’s also easier to replicate different system configurations for testing purposes.
Backup and Disaster Recovery: VMs can be snapshot and backed up more easily than physical machines. Hypervisors allow for the creation of snapshots and the ability to migrate VMs to other hosts for disaster recovery purposes.
Resource Scaling: VMs can be resized dynamically, adding or removing CPU and memory as needed. This flexibility allows for efficient resource scaling based on application demands.
Live Migration: Some hypervisors support live migration, which enables VMs to be moved from one physical host to another without downtime. This is useful for load balancing, hardware maintenance, and minimizing service interruptions.
Security Isolation: By isolating VMs from one another, hypervisors enhance security. Vulnerabilities in one VM are less likely to be exploited to gain access to other VMs or the host system.

A hypervisor is a critical technology that enables the efficient and secure operation of multiple virtual machines on a single physical server, providing benefits such as resource utilization, isolation, flexibility, and simplified management. It is a foundational component of modern virtualization and cloud computing infrastructure.

Types of hypervisors #

There are two main types of hypervisors:

Type 1 Hypervisor (Bare-Metal Hypervisor): This type runs directly on the physical hardware, without the need for an underlying operating system. It offers high performance and is typically used in enterprise data centers and cloud environments. Examples include VMware vSphere/ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V, and KVM.
Type 2 Hypervisor (Hosted Hypervisor): This type runs on top of an existing operating system, often used for desktop virtualization and development environments. Examples include VMware Workstation, Oracle VirtualBox, and Parallels Desktop.

List of Bare-Metal Hypervisors #

VMware vSphere/ESXi. Compatible formats are: VMware Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK), Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX), OVA and OVF (Open Virtualization Format), XenServer Virtual Disk (XVA), Raw Disk Images (raw).
Microsoft Hyper-V. Compatible formats are: Virtual Hard Disk (VHD), Hyper-V Virtual Hard Disk (VHDX), Virtual Machine Configuration (VMCX and VMRS), OVF (Open Virtualization Format) and OVA (Open Virtualization Archive), Raw Disk Images (raw).
KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine). Compatible formats are: QEMU Image (qcow2), Raw Disk Images (raw), Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK), Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX), OVF (Open Virtualization Format) and OVA (Open Virtualization Archive).
Xen. Compatible formats are: Xen Virtual Disk (Xen Virtual Machine Disk – XVD), Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX), QEMU Image (qcow2), Raw Disk Image (raw).
Oracle VM Server for SPARC and x86. It is based on Xen based Virtualization. Compatible formats are: Oracle VM Virtual Machine (VM) Format, Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX), VMware Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK), QEMU Image (qcow2), Raw Disk Image (raw), OVF (Open Virtualization Format) and OVA (Open Virtualization Archive).
Proxmox Virtual Environment (Proxmox VE). It is based on KVM Virtualization. Compatible formats are: QEMU Image (qcow2), Open Virtualization Format (OVF), Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX), Raw Disk Image (raw).
Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer). It is based on Xen based Virtualization. Compatible formats are: XenServer Virtual Disk (XVA), Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX), QEMU Image (qcow2) and Raw Disk Image (raw).
Red Hat Virtualization (RHV). It is based on KVM Virtualization. Compatible formats are: Red Hat Virtualization Export Domain (OVA), QEMU Image (qcow2), Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX) and Raw Disk Image (raw).
Nutanix AHV (Acropolis Hypervisor). It supports VMware and Hyper-V virtualization. Compatible formats are: Acropolis Hypervisor (AHV) Format, VMware Virtual Machine Disk (VMDK), Microsoft Virtual Hard Disk (VHD/VHDX), Raw Disk Image (raw)
IBM PowerVM (for IBM Power Systems)
SmartOS. It is based on KVM Virtualization.
Virtuozzo. It is based on KVM Virtualization.

List of Hosted Hypervisors #

VMware Workstation
Oracle VirtualBox
Parallels Desktop (for Mac)
VMware Player (now known as VMware Workstation Player)
QEMU (Quick Emulator)
Microsoft Virtual PC
VirtualBox by Oracle
VMware Fusion (for Mac)
Bochs
Virtuozzo. It is based on KVM Virtualization.

Hypervisors supported for load balancing #

RELIANOID ADC can be installed as ISO or template for any of the available hypervisors and virtual machine formats, with the best performance for every platform. Even, the baremetal installable ISO is optimized at boot-time in order to provide the best resource optimization. Also, with RELIANOID, the load balancer resources are not limited. You’re going to use the most of your virtualized machine for load balancing and able to re-scale seamlessly.

Deploy the RELIANOID ADC Load Balancer on the hypervisor of your choice!