It would seem logical that server consolidation with virtual machines would primarily be an issue for a server administrator. After all, it is servers that are being virtualized. But storage is a critical component of server virtualization. In many ways the storage layer is more important than physical servers for building an agile virtual server infrastructure.
Virtual Machine = File
A virtual machine (VM) is an instance of an operating system and software using only a portion of the processing and memory of a physical PC or server. The virtualized OS thinks it is running natively and that it has all the physical resources to itself. In fact these resources are being partitioned by a host system called a hypervisor. Multiple virtual machines can share one physical machine.
There is, however, another answer to the question – “What is a virtual machine?” A virtual machine is a simply a file. It is a configuration file that tells a hypervisor to create the partition of memory and processing to run an OS and applications from a virtual hard disk. This virtual hard disk is also a file.
