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With the inherent capabilities of computers, virtualization has become a major catch phrase being bandied about in the media today. Usually, the media mistakenly equates virtual machine technology, technology that can encapsulate all of the software that runs on a physical system and allows that capsule to run along side of others on a single system, with virtualization itself. It is often presented as something new and different rather than a well-established group of technologies with a long track record of success in data centers around the world. Suppliers, such as Intel, have been involved with all levels of virtualization technology for a very long time.

The exciting news is that virtualization technology, something that has been part of mainstream IT for decades, is now available as part of agile high volume, industry standard environments as well. It is due to the efforts of Intel and other suppliers of IT hardware and software that this has occurred.

Virtualization is the use of hardware and software technology to present a logical view of resources. This logical view is often strikingly different than the actual physical view. What does this really mean? System users may see the image of many different computers even though it is a single system. They may see many individual systems as a single computing resource. Individuals can be allowed to access computing solutions with devices that didn't exist when developers created the applications. Applications may appear to use devices that have long been considered obsolete even though none are actually present.

As one might expect, adding layers of software between the application and the underlying physical system could have performance implications. After all, the underlying systems are doing more work to support this logical or virtualized view to developers and users. Intel and other suppliers have been investing heavily in technology that would ease that...