Adoption of Virtualization in Cloud Computing: A Foundation Step towards Green Computing

Virtualization

Virtualization refers to the creation of virtual version of a resource that divides the resource into single or multiple execution environments. This is critical in cloud computing as it enhances scalability since every server is allocated enough storage and computing power needed by a client. The increased demand for user capacity requires more power and capacity (Bianchini et al., 2012).

Virtualization is changing the IT environment where most companies have been able to adopt it as a measure that allows for better utilization of hardware and reduction of costs (see Figure 1). One of the major benefits of virtualization that go unnoticed is the green computing (Sherringham, 2011).

Figure 1.

Virtualization of servers (Source: Bhattacharya, 2011)