Week 7 Posting - Home Lab Virtualization

 

Home Lab Virtualization

    Virtualization is a rapidly growing technology with the goal of maximizing the effectiveness of environments through scalability, redundancy, and availability. There are many ways to use virtualization, such as IaaS solutions, software applications, and at home lab designs. These costs can range from free to thousands of dollars depending on the requirements at hand.

    AWS (Amazon Web Services) offers on-demand at home capabilities for free through their cloud computing infrastructure. This will allow users to utilize external hardware and infrastructure to build a lab from. They offer free simple configurations, to cost effective scaling designs for labs and businesses. These instances can be configured to support a simple virtual setup or assist in virtualizing an entire lab that serves a specific function. 

    VirtualBox is a free open-source virtual machine software that is available for use through a simple download. Users are able to install, configure, and manage virtual machines across many different operating systems. As an example, an Ubuntu image could be loaded on a virtual machine. You could use this machine for learning Linux, improving Linux skills, and then creating a Linux program. Likewise, a Windows machine could be loaded up for learning how to manage servers or applications on servers.

    When used in combination, users can build various virtual solutions at home. AWS offers infrastructure and VM support, and software such as VirtualBox can be set up on a personal system. These can be used for testing, learning, or working. In addition, when a configuration isn't working out, gets corrupted, or becomes compromised due to virus or failure, snapshots and backups can restore the functionality if implemented (Ingram, 2021). Their functions are only limited by the users' selected designs and requirements.

Reference:

Ingram, J. (2021, June 8). Setup Your Own Virtual Computer with Oracle VirtualBox. Geek Culture. https://medium.com/geekculture/setup-your-own-virtual-computer-with-oracle-virtualbox-62ae2c5e0fe7