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The following is a timeline of virtualization development. In computing,
virtualization In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, stor ...
is the use of a computer to simulate another computer. Through virtualization, a ''host'' simulates a ''guest'' by exposing virtual hardware devices, which may be done through software or by allowing access to a physical device connected to the machine.


Timeline

Note: This timeline is missing data for important historical systems, including: Atlas Computer (Manchester), GE 645, Burroughs B5000.


Year 1960

In the mid-1960s, IBM's
Cambridge Scientific Center The IBM Cambridge Scientific Center was a company research laboratory established in February 1964 in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Situated at 545 Technology Square (''Tech Square''), in the same building as MIT's Project MAC, it was later renamed ...
developed
CP-40 CP-40 was a research precursor to CP-67, which in turn was part of IBM's then-revolutionary CP/CMS, CP 67CMS – a virtual machine/virtual memory time-sharing operating system for the IBM System/360 Model 67, and the parent of IBM's VM (operati ...
, the first version of
CP/CMS CP/CMS (Control Program/Cambridge Monitor System) is a discontinued time-sharing operating system of the late 1960s and early 1970s, known for its excellent performance and advanced features. It had three distinct versions: * CP-40/CMS, an im ...
. It went into production use in January 1967. From its inception,
CP-40 CP-40 was a research precursor to CP-67, which in turn was part of IBM's then-revolutionary CP/CMS, CP 67CMS – a virtual machine/virtual memory time-sharing operating system for the IBM System/360 Model 67, and the parent of IBM's VM (operati ...
was intended to implement
full virtualization In computer science, virtualization is a modern technique developed in late 1990s and is different from simulation and emulation. Virtualization employs techniques used to create instances of an environment, as opposed to simulation, which model ...
. Doing so required hardware and microcode customization on a S/360-40, to provide the necessary address translation and other virtualization features. Experience on the
CP-40 CP-40 was a research precursor to CP-67, which in turn was part of IBM's then-revolutionary CP/CMS, CP 67CMS – a virtual machine/virtual memory time-sharing operating system for the IBM System/360 Model 67, and the parent of IBM's VM (operati ...
project provided input to the development of the
IBM System/360 Model 67 IBM mainframes are large computer systems produced by IBM since 1952. During the 1960s and 1970s, IBM dominated the large computer market. Current mainframe computers in IBM's line of business computers are developments of the basic design of th ...
, announced in 1965 (along with its ill-starred operating system,
TSS/360 The IBM Time Sharing System TSS/360 is a discontinued early time-sharing operating system designed exclusively for a special model of the System/360 line of mainframes, the Model 67. Made available on a trial basis to a limited set of custom ...
).
CP-40 CP-40 was a research precursor to CP-67, which in turn was part of IBM's then-revolutionary CP/CMS, CP 67CMS – a virtual machine/virtual memory time-sharing operating system for the IBM System/360 Model 67, and the parent of IBM's VM (operati ...
was re-implemented for the S/360-67 as CP-67, and by April 1967, both versions were in daily production use.
CP/CMS CP/CMS (Control Program/Cambridge Monitor System) is a discontinued time-sharing operating system of the late 1960s and early 1970s, known for its excellent performance and advanced features. It had three distinct versions: * CP-40/CMS, an im ...
was made generally available to IBM customers in source code form, as part of the unsupported IBM Type-III Library, in 1968.


Year 1964

* IBM Cambridge Scientific Center begins development of
CP-40 CP-40 was a research precursor to CP-67, which in turn was part of IBM's then-revolutionary CP/CMS, CP 67CMS – a virtual machine/virtual memory time-sharing operating system for the IBM System/360 Model 67, and the parent of IBM's VM (operati ...
.


Year 1965

*IBM M44/44X, experimental paging system, in use at Thomas J. Watson Research Center. * IBM announces the IBM System/360-67, a 32-bit CPU with
virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very ...
hardware (August 1965).


Year 1966

*IBM ships the S/360-67 computer in June 1966. * IBM begins work on
CP-67 CP-67 was the ''control program'' portion of CP/CMS, a virtual machine operating system developed for the IBM System/360-67 by IBM's Cambridge Scientific Center. It was a reimplementation of their earlier research system CP-40, which ran on a on ...
, a re-implementation of CP-40 for the S/360-67.


Year 1967

* CP-40 (January) and CP-67 (April) go into production time-sharing use.


Year 1968

*CP/CMS installed at eight initial customer sites. * CP/CMS submitted to IBM Type-III Library by
MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...
's Lincoln Laboratory, making system available to all IBM S/360 customers at no charge in
source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...
form. * Resale of CP/CMS access begins at time-sharing vendor National CSS (becoming a distinct version, eventually renamed
VP/CSS VP/CSS was a time-sharing operating system developed by National CSS. It began life in 1968 as a copy of IBM's CP/CMS, which at the time was distributed to IBM customers at no charge, in source code form, without support, as part of the IBM Ty ...
).


Year 1971

* First
System/370 The IBM System/370 (S/370) is a model range of IBM mainframe computers announced on June 30, 1970, as the successors to the System/360 family. The series mostly maintains backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path ...
shipped: S/370-155 (January).


Year 1970

IBM announced the
System/370 The IBM System/370 (S/370) is a model range of IBM mainframe computers announced on June 30, 1970, as the successors to the System/360 family. The series mostly maintains backward compatibility with the S/360, allowing an easy migration path ...
in 1970. To the disappointment of
CP/CMS CP/CMS (Control Program/Cambridge Monitor System) is a discontinued time-sharing operating system of the late 1960s and early 1970s, known for its excellent performance and advanced features. It had three distinct versions: * CP-40/CMS, an im ...
users – as with the System/360 announcement – the series would not include
virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very ...
. In 1972, IBM changed direction, announcing that the option would be made available on all S/370 models, and also announcing several virtual storage operating systems, including
VM/370 VM (often: VM/CMS) is a family of IBM virtual machine operating systems used on IBM mainframes System/370, System/390, zSeries, System z and compatible systems, including the Hercules (emulator), Hercules emulator for personal computers. The ...
. By the mid-1970s,
CP/CMS CP/CMS (Control Program/Cambridge Monitor System) is a discontinued time-sharing operating system of the late 1960s and early 1970s, known for its excellent performance and advanced features. It had three distinct versions: * CP-40/CMS, an im ...
, VM, and the maverick
VP/CSS VP/CSS was a time-sharing operating system developed by National CSS. It began life in 1968 as a copy of IBM's CP/CMS, which at the time was distributed to IBM customers at no charge, in source code form, without support, as part of the IBM Ty ...
were running on numerous large IBM mainframes. By the late 80s, there were reported to be more VM licenses than MVS licenses.


Year 1972

*Announcement of virtual memory added to System/370 series. *
VM/370 VM (often: VM/CMS) is a family of IBM virtual machine operating systems used on IBM mainframes System/370, System/390, zSeries, System z and compatible systems, including the Hercules (emulator), Hercules emulator for personal computers. The ...
announced – and running on announcement date. VM/370 includes the ability to run VM under VM (previously implemented both at IBM and at user sites under CP/CMS, but not made part of standard releases)


Year 1973

* First shipment of announced virtual memory S/370 models (April: -158, May: -168).


Year 1977

* Initial commercial release of
VAX/VMS OpenVMS, often referred to as just VMS, is a multi-user, multiprocessing and virtual memory-based operating system. It is designed to support time-sharing, batch processing, transaction processing and workstation applications. Customers using Ope ...
, later renamed OpenVMS.


Year 1979

* The
chroot A chroot on Unix and Unix-like operating systems is an operation that changes the apparent root directory for the current running process and its children. A program that is run in such a modified environment cannot name (and therefore normall ...
system call was introduced during development of
Version 7 Unix Seventh Edition Unix, also called Version 7 Unix, Version 7 or just V7, was an important early release of the Unix operating system. V7, released in 1979, was the last Bell Laboratories release to see widespread distribution before the commercial ...
. Laying a foundation for container virtualization.


Year 1985

* October 9, 1985: Announcement of the
Intel 80286 The Intel 80286 (also marketed as the iAPX 286 and often called Intel 286) is a 16-bit microprocessor that was introduced on February 1, 1982. It was the first 8086-based CPU with separate, non- multiplexed address and data buses and also the ...
-based AT&T 6300+ with Simultask, a
virtual machine monitor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
developed by
Locus Computing Corporation Locus Computing Corporation was formed in 1982 by Gerald J. Popek, Charles S. Kline and Gregory I. Thiel to commercialize the technologies developed for the LOCUS distributed operating system at UCLA. Locus was notable for commercializing si ...
in collaboration with
AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile te ...
, that enabled the direct execution of an Intel 8086 guest operating system under a host Unix System V Release 2 OS. Although the product was marketed with Microsoft MS-DOS as the guest OS, in fact the Virtual Machine could support any realmode operating system or standalone program (such as
Microsoft Flight Simulator ''Microsoft Flight Simulator'' is a series of amateur flight simulator programs for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and earlier for MS-DOS and Classic Mac OS. It was an early product in the Microsoft application portfolio and differed sig ...
) that was written using only valid 8086 instructions (not instructions introduced with the 80286). Locus subsequently developed this technology into their "Merge" product line.


Year 1987

*January 1987: A "product evaluation" version of Merge/386 from
Locus Computing Corporation Locus Computing Corporation was formed in 1982 by Gerald J. Popek, Charles S. Kline and Gregory I. Thiel to commercialize the technologies developed for the LOCUS distributed operating system at UCLA. Locus was notable for commercializing si ...
was made available to OEMs. Merge/386 made use of the
Virtual 8086 mode In the 80386 microprocessor and later, virtual 8086 mode (also called virtual real mode, V86-mode, or VM86) allows the execution of real mode applications that are incapable of running directly in protected mode while the processor is running a ...
provided by the
Intel 80386 The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor introduced in 1985. The first versions had 275,000 transistorsvirtual 8086 machines. The virtual machines supported unmodified guest operating systems and standalone programs such as
Microsoft Flight Simulator ''Microsoft Flight Simulator'' is a series of amateur flight simulator programs for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and earlier for MS-DOS and Classic Mac OS. It was an early product in the Microsoft application portfolio and differed sig ...
; but in typical usage the guest was MS-DOS with a Locus proprietary redirector (also marketed for networked PCs as "PC-Interface") and a "network" driver that provided communication with a regular user-mode file server process running under the host operating system on the same machine. * October 1987: Retail Version 1.0 of Merge/386 began shipping, offered with
Microport MicroPort is a global medical device developer and manufacturer that is headquartered in Shanghai, China. It designs and produces products for a range of medical fields including cardiology, interventional radiology, orthopedics, electrophysiolog ...
Unix System V Release 3.


Year 1988

*
SoftPC SoftPC is a software emulator of x86 hardware. It was developed by Rod MacGregor, Henry Nash & Phil Bousfield, following the founding of Insignia Solutions in 1986 By MacGregor, with "about a dozen people who had left the CAD/CAM workstation speci ...
1.0 for Sun was introduced in 1988 by Insignia Solutions

*
SoftPC SoftPC is a software emulator of x86 hardware. It was developed by Rod MacGregor, Henry Nash & Phil Bousfield, following the founding of Insignia Solutions in 1986 By MacGregor, with "about a dozen people who had left the CAD/CAM workstation speci ...
appears in its first version for Apple Inc., Apple
Macintosh The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and software en ...
. These versions (Sun and Macintosh) only have support for
DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
.


Year 1991

* IBM introduced OS/2 Virtual DOS machine (VDM) with support for x86 virtual 8086 mode, being capable of virtualiZing DOS/Windows and other 16 bits operating systems, like CP/M-8


Year 1994

* Kevin Lawton leaves MIT Lincoln Lab and start the
Bochs Bochs (pronounced "box") is a portable IA-32 and x86-64 IBM PC compatible emulator and debugger mostly written in C++ and distributed as free software under the GNU Lesser General Public License. It supports emulation of the processor(s) (includin ...
project. Bochs was initially coded for x86 architecture, capable of emulating BIOS, processor and other x86-compatible hardware, by simple algorithms, isolated from the rest of the environment, eventually incorporating the ability to run different processor algorithms under x86-architecture or the host, including bios and core processor (Itanium x64, x86_64,
ARM In human anatomy, the arm refers to the upper limb in common usage, although academically the term specifically means the upper arm between the glenohumeral joint (shoulder joint) and the elbow joint. The distal part of the upper limb between th ...
, MIPS, PowerPC, etc.), and with the advantage that the application is multi platform ( BSD,
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
,
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...
, Mac, Solaris).


Year 1997

* First version of
Virtual PC Windows Virtual PC (successor to Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, Microsoft Virtual PC 2004, and Connectix Virtual PC) is a Hardware virtualization, virtualization program for Microsoft Windows. In July 2006, Microsoft released the Windows version f ...
for Macintosh platform was released in June 1997 by
Connectix Connectix Corporation was a software and hardware company, noted for having released innovative products that were either made obsolete as Apple Computer incorporated the ideas into system software, or were sold to other companies once they becam ...


Year 1998

*June 15, 1998,
Simics Simics is a full-system simulator or virtual platform used to run unchanged production binaries of the target hardware. Simics was originally developed by the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS), and then spun off to Virtutech for commer ...
/sun4m is presented at USENIX'98, demonstrating full system simulation booting Linux 2.0.30 and Solaris 2.6 unmodified from dd'ed disks

* October 26, 1998,
VMware VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture. VMware's desktop software ru ...
filed for a patent on their techniques, which was granted as U.S. Patent 6,397,24


Year 1999

On February 8, 1999, VMware introduced the first
x86 virtualization x86 virtualization is the use of hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities on an x86/x86-64 CPU. In the late 1990s x86 virtualization was achieved by complex software techniques, necessary to compensate for the processor's lack of hardware-as ...
product for the Intel IA-32 architecture, known as ''VMware Virtual Platform'', based on earlier research by its founders at Stanford University. VMware Virtual Platform was based on software emulation with Guest/Host OS design that required all Guest environments be stored as files under the host OS filesystem.


Year 2000

* FreeBSD 4.0 is released, including initial implementation of
FreeBSD jail The jail mechanism is an implementation of FreeBSD's OS-level virtualisation that allows system administrators to partition a FreeBSD-derived computer system into several independent mini-systems called ''jails'', all sharing the same kernel, with ...
s. * IBM announces
z/VM z/VM is the current version in IBM's VM family of virtual machine operating systems. z/VM was first released in October 2000 and remains in active use and development . It is directly based on technology and concepts dating back to the 1960s, wi ...
, new version of VM for IBM's 64-bit
z/Architecture z/Architecture, initially and briefly called ESA Modal Extensions (ESAME), is IBM's 64-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architecture, implemented by its mainframe computers. IBM introduced its first z/Architecture ...
.


Year 2001

*January 31, 2001,
AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
and
Virtutech Virtutech was a company founded in 1998 as a spin-off from the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS), to commercially develop its Simics computer architecture simulator software. In 2004, Virtutech accepted investment and moved headquarter ...
release
Simics Simics is a full-system simulator or virtual platform used to run unchanged production binaries of the target hardware. Simics was originally developed by the Swedish Institute of Computer Science (SICS), and then spun off to Virtutech for commer ...
/x86-64 ("Virtuhammer") to support the new 64-bit architecture for x86

Virtuhammer is used to port Linux distributions and the Windows kernel to x86-64 well before the first
x86-64 x86-64 (also known as x64, x86_64, AMD64, and Intel 64) is a 64-bit version of the x86 instruction set, first released in 1999. It introduced two new modes of operation, 64-bit mode and compatibility mode, along with a new 4-level paging ...
processor (
Opteron Opteron is AMD's x86 former server and workstation processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture (known generically as x86-64 or AMD64). It was released on April 22, 2003, with the ''Sledg ...
) was available in April 2003. * June, Connectix launches its first version of Virtual PC for Window

* July, VMware created the first
x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...
server virtualization produc

* Egenera, Inc. launches their Processor Area Network (PAN Manager) software and BladeFrame chassis which provide hardware virtualization of processing blade's (pBlade) internal disk, network interface cards, and serial consol

* Virtuozzo_(company), Virtuozzo (earlier named SWsoft) had developed was later being called
Containers A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...
for Linux since 1999 and released a first version in 2001.


Year 2003

*First release of first open-source
x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...
hypervisor, Xen

* February 18, 2003, Microsoft acquired virtualization technologies (Virtual PC and unreleased product called "Virtual Server") from Connectix Corporation

* Late 2003, EMC acquired VMware for $635 million. * Late 2003, VERITAS acquired Ejascent for $59 million.
November 10, 2003
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
releases
Microsoft Virtual PC Windows Virtual PC (successor to Microsoft Virtual PC 2007, Microsoft Virtual PC 2004, and Connectix Virtual PC) is a virtualization program for Microsoft Windows. In July 2006, Microsoft released the Windows version free of charge. In August ...
, which is machine-level virtualization technology, to ease the transition to Windows XP.


Year 2005

*HP releases Integrity Virtual Machines 1.0 and 1.2 which ran only HP-UX.
October 24, 2005
VMware releases VMware Player, a free player for virtual machines, to the masses. * Sun releases Solaris 10, including
Solaris Zones Solaris Containers (including Solaris Zones) is an implementation of operating system-level virtualization technology for x86 and SPARC systems, first released publicly in February 2004 in build 51 beta of Solaris 10, and subsequently in the f ...
, for both x86/x64 and SPARC systems.


Year 2006


July 12, 2006
VMware releases
VMware Server VMware Server (formerly VMware GSX Server) is a discontinued free-of-charge virtualization-software server suite developed and supplied by VMware, Inc. VMware Server has fewer features than VMware ESX, software available for purchase, but can cr ...
, a free machine-level virtualization product for the server market. * Microsoft Virtual PC 2006 is released as a free program, also in July.
July 17, 2006
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
bought Softricity.
August 16, 2006
VMware announces the winners of the virtualization appliance contest.

moka5 Moka5 (also called MokaFive) was a desktop virtualization company founded in 2005. It ceased operation in 2015 after an apparent bankruptcy. The company's software began as a lab experiment at Stanford University and founders include professor M ...
delivers LivePC technology. * HP releases Integrity Virtual Machines Version 2.0, which supports Windows Server 2003, CD and DVD burners, tape drives and VLAN.
December 11, 2006
Virtual Iron releases Virtual Iron 3.1, a free bare-metal virtualization product for enterprise server virtualization market.


Year 2007

*Open source KVM released which is integrated with Linux kernel and provides virtualization on only Linux system, it needs hardware support.
January 15, 2007
InnoTek released
VirtualBox Oracle VM VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and Innotek VirtualBox) is a type-2 hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox was originally created by Innotek GmbH, which was acquired by S ...
Open Source Edition (OSE), the first professional PC virtualization solution released as open source under the GNU General Public License (
GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general u ...
). It includes some code from the
QEMU QEMU is a free and open-source emulator (Quick EMUlator). It emulates the machine's central processing unit, processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it t ...
project. * Sun releases Solaris 8 Containers to enable migration of a Solaris 8 computer into a Solaris Container on a Solaris 10 system – for SPARC only.


Year 2008

* The first
Linux kernel mainline The Linux kernel is a free and open-source, monolithic, modular, multitasking, Unix-like operating system kernel. It was originally authored in 1991 by Linus Torvalds for his i386-based PC, and it was soon adopted as the kernel for the GNU o ...
featuring
cgroups cgroups (abbreviated from control groups) is a Linux kernel feature that limits, accounts for, and isolates the resource usage (CPU, memory, disk I/O, network, etc.) of a collection of processes. Engineers at Google started the work on this ...
(developed by
Google Google LLC () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company focusing on Search Engine, search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, software, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, ar ...
since 2006) was released. And based upon the first version of Linux Containers (LXC) was released. Laying a foundation for later technologies like Docker, Systemd-nspawn and
Podman OS-level virtualization is an operating system (OS) paradigm in which the kernel allows the existence of multiple isolated user space instances, called ''containers'' ( LXC, Solaris containers, Docker, Podman), ''zones'' (Solaris containers), ' ...
.
January 15, 2008
VMware, Inc. announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Thinstall, a privately held
application virtualization Application virtualization is a software technology that encapsulates computer programs from the underlying operating system on which they are executed. A fully virtualized application is not installed in the traditional sense, although it is sti ...
software company.
February 12, 2008
Sun Microsystems announced that it had entered into a stock purchase agreement to acquire InnoTek, makers of
VirtualBox Oracle VM VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and Innotek VirtualBox) is a type-2 hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle Corporation. VirtualBox was originally created by Innotek GmbH, which was acquired by S ...
. * In April,
VMware VMware, Inc. is an American cloud computing and virtualization technology company with headquarters in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86 architecture. VMware's desktop software ru ...
releases
VMware Workstation VMware Workstation Pro (known as VMware Workstation until release of VMware Workstation 12 in 2015) is a hosted (Type 2) hypervisor that runs on x64 versions of Windows and Linux operating systemshttps://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/sear ...
6.5 beta, the first program for Windows and Linux to enable DirectX 9 accelerated graphics on Windows XP guest


Year 2013

Docker, Inc. Docker, Inc. is an American technology company that develops productivity tools built around Docker, which automates the deployment of code inside software containers. Major products of the company are Docker Hub, a central repository of contain ...
releases Docker, a series of
platform as a service Platform as a service (PaaS) or application platform as a service (aPaaS) or platform-based service is a category of cloud computing services that allows customers to provision, instantiate, run, and manage a modular bundle comprising a computing ...
(PaaS) products that use
OS-level virtualization OS-level virtualization is an operating system (OS) paradigm in which the kernel allows the existence of multiple isolated user space instances, called ''containers'' (LXC, Solaris containers, Docker, Podman), ''zones'' (Solaris containers), '' ...
.


Year 2014

Sep 8, 2014 Initially designed by Google, the first public build of
Kubernetes Kubernetes (, commonly stylized as K8s) is an open-source container orchestration system for automating software deployment, scaling, and management. Google originally designed Kubernetes, but the Cloud Native Computing Foundation now maintains ...
was released. When Kubernetes first debuted, it offered a number of advantages over Docker, the most popular containerization platform at the time. The purpose of Kubernetes was to make it simple for users to deploy containerized applications across a sizable cluster of container hosts. In order to offer more features and functionality for managing containerized applications at scale, Kubernetes was created to complement Docker rather than to completely replace it.


Overview of Virtualization


As an overview, there are three levels of virtualization

* At the hardware level, the VMs can run multiple guest OSes. This is best used for testing and training that require networking interoperability between more than one OSes, since not only can the guest OSes be different from the host OS, there can be as many guest OS as VMs, as long as there is enough CPU,
RAM Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...
and storage space. IBM introduced this around 1990 under the name logical partitioning (LPAR), at first only in the mainframe field. * At the operating system level, it can only virtualize one OS: the guest OS is the host OS. This is similar to having many
terminal server A terminal server connects devices with a serial port to a local area network (LAN). Products marketed as terminal servers can be very simple devices that do not offer any security functionality, such as data encryption and user authentication ...
sessions without locking down the desktop. Thus, this is the best of both worlds, having the speed of a TS session with the benefit of full access to the desktop as a virtual machine, where the user can still control the quotas for CPU, RAM and HDD. Similar to the hardware level, this is still considered a Server Virtualization where each guest OS has its own
IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication.. Updated by . An IP address serves two main functions: network interface ident ...
, so it can be used for networking applications such as
web hosting A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing we ...
. * At the application level, it is running on the Host OS directly, without any guest OS, which can be in a locked down desktop, including in a
terminal server A terminal server connects devices with a serial port to a local area network (LAN). Products marketed as terminal servers can be very simple devices that do not offer any security functionality, such as data encryption and user authentication ...
session. This is called Application Virtualization or Desktop Virtualization, which virtualizes the front end, whereas Server Virtualization virtualizes the back end. Now, Application Streaming refers to delivering applications directly onto the desktop and running them locally. Traditionally in
terminal server A terminal server connects devices with a serial port to a local area network (LAN). Products marketed as terminal servers can be very simple devices that do not offer any security functionality, such as data encryption and user authentication ...
computing, the applications are running on the server, not locally, and streaming the screenshots onto the desktop.


Application virtualization

Application virtualization Application virtualization is a software technology that encapsulates computer programs from the underlying operating system on which they are executed. A fully virtualized application is not installed in the traditional sense, although it is sti ...
solutions such as
VMware ThinApp VMware ThinApp (formerly ''Thinstall'') is an application virtualization and portable application creator suite by VMware that can package conventional Windows applications so that they become portable applications by running on another operat ...
, Softricity, and Trigence attempt to separate application-specific files and settings from the host operating system, thus allowing them to run in more-or-less isolated sandboxes without installation and without the memory and disk overhead of full machine virtualization. Application virtualization is tightly tied to the host OS and thus does not translate to other operating systems or hardware. VMware ThinApp and Softricity are Intel Windows centric, while Trigence supports Linux and Solaris. Unlike machine virtualization, Application virtualization does not use code emulation or translation so CPU-related benchmarks run with no changes, though filesystem benchmarks may experience some performance degradation. On Windows, VMware ThinApp and Softricity essentially work by intercepting filesystem and registry requests by an application and redirecting those requests to a preinstalled isolated sandbox, thus allowing the application to run without installation or changes to the local PC. Though VMware ThinApp and Softricity both began independent development around 1998, behind the scenes VMware ThinApp and Softricity are implemented using different techniques: * VMware ThinApp works by packaging an application into a single "packaged" EXE which includes the runtime plus the application data files and registry. VMware ThinApp's runtime is loaded by Windows as a normal Windows application, from there the runtime replaces the Windows loader, filesystem, and registry for the target application and presents a merged image of the host PC as if the application had been previously installed. VMware ThinApp replaces all related API functions for the host application, for example the ReadFile API supplied to the application must pass through VMware ThinApp before it reaches the operating system. If the application is reading a virtual file, VMware ThinApp handles the request itself otherwise the request will be passed on to the operating system. Because VMware ThinApp is implemented in user-mode without device drivers and it does not have a client that is preinstalled, applications can run directly from USB Flash or network shares without previously needing elevated security privileges. * Softricity (acquired by Microsoft) operates on a similar principle using device drivers to intercept file requests in ring0 at a level closer to the operating system. Softricity installs a client in Administrator mode which can then be accessed by restricted users on the machine. An advantage of virtualizing at the kernel level is the Windows Loader (responsible for loading
EXE Exe or EXE may refer to: * .exe, a file extension * exe., abbreviation for executive Places * River Exe, in England * Exe Estuary, in England * Exe Island, in Exeter, England Transportation and vehicles * Exe (locomotive), a British locomotive ...
and DLL files) does not need to be re-implemented and greater application compatibility can be achieved with less work (Softricity claims to support most major applications). A disadvantage of ring0 implementation is that it requires elevated security privileges to be installed and crashes or security defects can occur system-wide rather than being isolated to a specific application. Because Application Virtualization runs all application code natively, it can only provide security guarantees as strong as the host OS is able to provide. Unlike full machine virtualization, Application virtualization solutions currently do not work with device drivers and other code that runs at ring0 such as virus scanners. These special applications must be installed normally on the host PC to function.


Managed runtimes

Another technique sometimes referred to as virtualization, is portable byte code execution using a standard portable native runtime (aka Managed Runtimes). The two most popular solutions today include
Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
and .NET. These solutions both use a process called
JIT Jit (also known as jiti, jit-jive and the Harare beat) is a style of popular Zimbabwean dance music. It features a swift rhythm played on drums and accompanied by a guitar. Jit evolved out many diverse influences, including domestic chimurenga, ...
(Just in time) compilation to translate code from a virtual portable
Machine Language In computer programming, machine code is any low-level programming language, consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). Each instruction causes the CPU to perform a very ...
into the local processor's native code. This allows applications to be compiled for a single architecture and then run on many different machines. Beyond machine portable applications, an additional advantage to this technique includes strong security guarantees. Because all native application code is generated by the controlling environment, it can be checked for correctness (possible security exploits) prior to execution. Programs must be originally designed for the environment in question or manually rewritten and recompiled to work for these new environments. For example, one cannot automatically convert or run a Windows / Linux native app on .NET or Java. Because portable runtimes try to present a common
API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
for applications for a wide variety of hardware, applications are less able to take advantage of OS-specific features. Portable application environments also have higher memory and CPU overheads than optimized native applications, but these overheads are much smaller compared with full machine virtualization. Portable Byte Code environments such as Java have become very popular on the server where a wide variety of hardware exists and the set of OS-specific APIs required is standard across most Unix and Windows flavors. Another popular feature among managed runtimes is garbage collection, which automatically detects unused data in memory and reclaims the memory without the developer having to explicitly invoke "free" operations.


Neutral view of application virtualization

Given the industry bias of the past, to be more neutral, there are also two other ways to look at the Application Level: * The first type is application packagers (VMware ThinApp, Softricity) whereas the other is application compilers (Java and .NET). Because it is a packager, it can be used to stream applications without modifying the source code, whereas the latter can only be used to compile the source code. * Another way to look at it is from the
Hypervisor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
point of view. The first one is "hypervisor" in user mode, whereas the other is "hypervisor" in runtime mode. The hypervisor was put in quotation, because both of them have similar behavior in that they intercept system calls in a different mode: user mode; and runtime mode. The user mode intercepts the system calls from the runtime mode before going to kernel mode. The real hypervisor only needs to intercept the system call using hypercall in kernel mode. Hopefully, once Windows has a
Hypervisor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
,
Virtual machine monitor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
, there may even be no need for JRE and CLR. Moreover, in the case of Linux, maybe the JRE can be modified to run on top of the Hypervisor as a loadable kernel module running in
kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learn ...
mode, instead of having slow legacy runtime in user mode. Now, if it were running on top of the Linux Hypervisor directly, then it should be called Java OS, not just another runtime mode
JIT Jit (also known as jiti, jit-jive and the Harare beat) is a style of popular Zimbabwean dance music. It features a swift rhythm played on drums and accompanied by a guitar. Jit evolved out many diverse influences, including domestic chimurenga, ...
. * Mendel Rosenblum called the runtime mode a High-level language virtual machine in August 2004. However, at that time, the first type, intercepting system calls in user mode, was irresponsible and unthinkable, so he didn't mention it in his article. Hence, Application Streaming was still mysterious in 2004. Now, when the
JVM A Java virtual machine (JVM) is a virtual machine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are also compiled to Java bytecode. The JVM is detailed by a specification that formally describes ...
, no longer High-level language virtual machines, becomes Java OS running on Linux Hypervisor, then Java Applications will have a new level of playing field, just as Windows Applications already has with Softricity. * In summary, the first one is virtualizing the Binary Code so that it can be installed once and run anywhere, whereas the other is virtualizing the
source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...
using
Byte code Bytecode (also called portable code or p-code) is a form of instruction set designed for efficient execution by a software interpreter. Unlike human-readable source code, bytecodes are compact numeric codes, constants, and references (norma ...
or
Managed code Managed code is computer program code that requires and will execute only under the management of a Common Language Infrastructure (CLI); Virtual Execution System (VES); virtual machine, e.g. .NET, CoreFX, or .NET Framework; Common Language Runt ...
so that it can be written once and run anywhere. Both of them are actually partial solutions to the twin portability problems of: application portability; and source code portability. Maybe it is time to combine the two problems into one complete solution at the
hypervisor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
level in the
kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learn ...
mode.


Further development

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
bought Softricity on July 17, 2006, and popularized Application Streaming, giving traditional Windows applications a level playing field with Web and Java applications with respect to the ease of distribution (i.e. no more setup required, just click and run). Soon every JRE and
CLR CLR may refer to: * Calcium Lime Rust, a household cleaning-product * California Law Review, a publication by the UC Berkeley School of Law * Tube_bending, Centerline Radius, a term in the tubing industry used to describe the radius of a bend * Cen ...
can run virtually in user mode, without kernel mode drivers being installed, such that there can even be multiple versions of JRE and
CLR CLR may refer to: * Calcium Lime Rust, a household cleaning-product * California Law Review, a publication by the UC Berkeley School of Law * Tube_bending, Centerline Radius, a term in the tubing industry used to describe the radius of a bend * Cen ...
running concurrently in RAM. The integration of the Linux Hypervisor into the Linux Kernel and that of the Windows Hypervisor into the Windows Kernel may make
rootkit A rootkit is a collection of computer software, typically malicious, designed to enable access to a computer or an area of its software that is not otherwise allowed (for example, to an unauthorized user) and often masks its existence or the exis ...
techniques such as the filter driverFile System Filter Driver
/ref> obsolete. This may take a while as the Linux Hypervisor is still waiting for the Xen
Hypervisor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
and VMware
Hypervisor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
to be fully compatible with each other as Oracle impatiently pounding at the door to let the Hypervisor come into the Linux Kernel so that it can full steam ahead with its Grid Computing life. Meanwhile,
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
have decided to be fully compatible with the Xen
Hypervisor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
br>
IBM, of course, doesn't just sit idle as it is working with VMware for the x86 servers, and possibly helping Xen to move from x86 into Power ISA using the open source rHype. Now, to make the
Hypervisor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
party into a full house,
Intel VT-x x86 virtualization is the use of hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities on an x86/x86-64 CPU. In the late 1990s x86 virtualization was achieved by complex software techniques, necessary to compensate for the processor's lack of hardware-a ...
and AMD-V are hoping to ease and speed up para-virtualization so that a guest OS can be run unmodified.


See also

*
Comparison of platform virtualization software Platform virtualization software, specifically emulators and hypervisors, are software packages that emulate the whole physical computer machine, often providing multiple virtual machines on one physical platform. The table below compares basic i ...
* Comparison of application virtualization software *
Emulator In computing, an emulator is hardware or software that enables one computer system (called the ''host'') to behave like another computer system (called the ''guest''). An emulator typically enables the host system to run software or use pe ...
*
Hypervisor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
*
IBM SAN Volume Controller The IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) is a block storage virtualization appliance that belongs to the IBM System Storage product family. SVC implements an indirection, or "virtualization", layer in a Fibre Channel storage area network (SAN). Arc ...
*
OS-level virtualization OS-level virtualization is an operating system (OS) paradigm in which the kernel allows the existence of multiple isolated user space instances, called ''containers'' (LXC, Solaris containers, Docker, Podman), ''zones'' (Solaris containers), '' ...
*
Physical-to-Virtual In computing. Physical-to-Virtual ("P2V" or "p-to-v" ) involves the process of decoupling and migrating a physical server's operating system (OS), applications, and data from that physical server to a virtual-machine guest hosted on a virtualiz ...
*
Virtual tape library A virtual tape library (VTL) is a data storage virtualization technology used typically for backup and recovery purposes. A VTL presents a storage component (usually hard disk storage) as tape libraries or tape drives for use with existing backup ...
*
x86 virtualization x86 virtualization is the use of hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities on an x86/x86-64 CPU. In the late 1990s x86 virtualization was achieved by complex software techniques, necessary to compensate for the processor's lack of hardware-as ...


References


External links


Application Virtualization: Streamlining Distribution
August 31, 2006—By James Drews
Windows Virtualization
from Microsoft
Virtualization Overview
from VMware
An introduction to Virtualization

Weblog post
on the how virtualization can be used to implement
Mandatory Access Control In computer security, mandatory access control (MAC) refers to a type of access control by which the operating system or database constrains the ability of a ''subject'' or ''initiator'' to access or generally perform some sort of operation on a ...
.
The Effect of Virtualization on OS Interference
in PDF format.




Attacks on virtual machine emulators
{{Timelines of computing
Virtualization In computing, virtualization or virtualisation (sometimes abbreviated v12n, a numeronym) is the act of creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something at the same abstraction level, including virtual computer hardware platforms, stor ...
Virtualization