Hardware Virtualization: the Nuts and Bolts

Every one of us has already used virtualization in some degree. In fact, most of us wouldn't be very productive without the virtualization that a modern OS offers us. A "natively running" server or workstation with a modern OS already virtualizes quite a few resources: memory, disks, and CPUs for example. For example, while there may only be only 4GB RAM in a Windows 2003 server, each of the tens of running application is given the illusion that they can use the full 2GB (or 3GB) user-mode address space. There might only be three disks in a RAID-5 array available, but as you have created 10 volumes (or LUNs), it appears as if there are 10 disks in the machine. Although there might only be two CPUs in the server, you get the impression that five actively running applications are all working in parallel at full speed.