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Virtualization Essentials

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Learn virtualization skills by building your own virtual machine Virtualization Essentials, Second Edition provides new and aspiring IT professionals with immersive training in working with virtualization environments. Clear, straightforward discussion simplifies complex concepts, and the hands-on tutorial approach helps you quickly get up to speed on the fundamentals. You'll begin by learning what virtualization is and how it works within the computing environment, then you'll dive right into building your own virtual machine. You'll learn how to set up the CPU, memory, storage, networking, and more as you master the skills that put you in-demand on the job market. Each chapter focuses on a specific goal, and concludes with review questions that test your understanding as well as suggested exercises that help you reinforce what you've learned.

As more and more companies are leveraging virtualization, it's imperative that IT professionals have the skills and knowledge to interface with virtualization-centric infrastructures. This book takes a learning-by-doing approach to give you hands-on training and a core understanding of virtualization.

Understand how virtualization works Create a virtual machine by scratch and migration Configure and manage basic components and supporting devices Develop the necessary skill set to work in today's virtual world Virtualization was initially used to build test labs, but its use has expanded to become best practice for a tremendous variety of IT solutions including high availability, business continuity, dynamic IT, and more. Cloud computing and DevOps rely on virtualization technologies, and the exponential spread of these and similar applications make virtualization proficiency a major value-add for any IT professional. Virtualization Essentials, Second Edition provides accessible, user-friendly, informative virtualization training for the forward-looking pro.

274 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 22, 2012

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About the author

Matthew Portnoy

3 books1 follower

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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
Profile Image for Balhau.
59 reviews5 followers
April 2, 2015
Well this is a nice book. However not enough to get four stars because of some biased approach. I don't blame the author to use the VMWare software to exemplify the concepts of virtualization however in some parts we see that some other tools and some other approach could, and in my opinion should, be done. The book give a nice overview about the main challenges we face when designing a virtualized environment, however, and again, in my opinion the some more practical attention could be given to the "type one" hypervisors. The book is well written and a very good one for people who's not very familiar with the concepts, however is a little bit disappointing to more knowledgeable people who have more technical interest in how things work in a lower level.
Profile Image for Chantelle.
16 reviews1 follower
August 29, 2022
Not the most comprehensive or detailed book on the subject, but it covered the basics and I learned a few things I didn’t know about how virtual machines and virtualization works.
12 reviews
January 29, 2017
Should be titled: Overview of VMWare. There is a little mention of other products but none very useful. Very nice printing with with quality screenshots, also not useful. Detailing step by step every screen and option in a setup wizard is completely unnecessary. The high level "managerial" overview is understandable given the "essentials" part of the title, but this book still has too much fluff.
Profile Image for Ben.
2,737 reviews232 followers
February 27, 2024
Virtually, Great!

If you are hoping to learn about computer virtualization - then this is the book for you!

I got a lot out of this book, and found it is a great companion to some of the cybersecurity learning I am doing too.

Great writing and lots of great step-by-step instructions to make sure you are set up!

Check it out!

4.6/5
8 reviews
August 5, 2020
Fully focused on server virtualization , also IMHO this is too basic.
Profile Image for Indi.
223 reviews2 followers
December 9, 2024
It's fine, but there are a lot of unnecessary and specific analogies that don't make sense "unless you're a nerd" yet are assumed to be universal in nature.
Profile Image for Taylor Leick.
89 reviews2 followers
January 17, 2025
Always good to read a textbook on the industry you've been working in. I still had a bit to learn, but knew enough to contextualize or even fill in the gaps in other areas.
Profile Image for Favio Escalon.
15 reviews
November 9, 2023
I had to read this book for my Linux and Virtualization class. I really had no idea of the concept. I had previously heard what virtualization was and how it was used mainly for cybersecurity but after reading this book, I have a very good understanding of what it is and how it is pretty much used everywhere in the modern world. For anyone interested in learning about IT or any student out there this book is a 10/10. Not a long read or boring in any way.
Profile Image for David.
432 reviews5 followers
December 21, 2016
Virtualization brought unprecedented cost reduction and agility to IT infrastructure - decimating hardware manufacturers on its path. IBM, for example, is shrinking for 4+ years in a row because of it. I first heard of VMWare about 7 years ago working on data center migration. Didn't make big impression. That all changed with Cloud, but didn't make clear connection with Virtualization until this book. Four key areas - CPU, Memory, Storage, Network. Also, Virtual Machine and Containers. This book was a great intro - rather repetitive, but explains the concept without being too technical.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews

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