Can you use virtualization to create a separate test environment?

Virtualization solutions are implemented for many different reasons but there are three that are most common. These reasons are, for testing and development purposes, to consolidate server resources and for disaster recovery purposes. Based on what a virtualization solutions purpose is, it should be customized accordingly.

Testing and development

Virtualization is commonly used to create isolated testing and development environments which won't interfere with or damage a business's existing infrastructure. If an application is being developed for many different operating systems, then a bare-metal or hosted virtualization solution is the best solution to use.

This is because using these solutions, multiple virtual machines with different operating systems can be created. The added advantage of using a hosted virtualization solution is that it is cheaper and allows IT professionals to switch between their testing/development environment and their actual physical or normal workspace.

If an application is being tested for a single operating system, then a good solution is using an application virtualization program. Again this is cheaper than a full virtualization solution and it allows an IT professional to test an application in the normal working environment, but in complete isolation. This means that their host operating environment is completely safe and can continue running normally, no matter what other applications are doing.

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For more information on Virtualization and to sign up for our Cloud Computing Certification courses, have a look at the Virtualization Certification Kit.