Book excerpt: Virtualization and related technologies like hypervisors, which create virtual machines on a single hardware machine, and containers (also known as zones), which create virtual operating systems running on a single operating system, are a totally new area for many system administrators. Oracle® SolarisTM 10 System Virtualization Essentials provides an accessible introduction to computer virtualization, specifically the system virtualization technologies that use the Oracle Solaris or OpenSolaris operating systems. This accessible guide covers the key concepts system administrators need to understand and explains how to Use Dynamic Domains to maximize workload isolation on Sun SPARC systems Use Oracle VM Server for SPARC to deploy different Oracle Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris environments on SPARC CMT (chip multithreading) systems Use Oracle VM Server for x86 or xVM hypervisor to deploy a server with heterogeneous operating systems Use Oracle VM VirtualBox to develop and test software in heterogeneous environments Use Oracle Solaris Containers to maximize efficiency and scalability of workloads Use Oracle Solaris Containers to migrate Solaris 8 and Solaris 9 workloads to new hardware systems Mix virtualization technologies to maximize workload density Starting with a discussion of system virtualization in general terms—the needs of consolidation, the benefits of virtualization, and a description of the most common types of computer virtualization—this book also covers many of the concepts, features, and methods shared by many implementations of system virtualization. Oracle’s computer virtualization technologies that are directly related to the Oracle Solaris OS are described in detail along with a discussion of the factors that should be considered when choosing a virtualization technology. Finally, several examples of these technologies and an overview of virtualization management software are provided, as well as a history of virtualization.