Welcome to SC//Insights, where Scale Computing’s product experts explain the inner workings of all things hyperconverged infrastructure, edge computing, and virtualization. In our second episode, “The Role of the Hypervisor in Modern Virtualization”, Craig Theriac, VP of Product Management along with Dave Demlow, VP of Product Strategy of Scale Computing take a deep dive into virtualization, its evolution, and the crucial role of the hypervisor and hypervisor software.
By emulating a physical computer system, virtualization allows multiple operating systems or applications to run on a single physical machine, optimizing resource utilization and flexibility. The hypervisor is the software layer responsible for managing physical resources, ensuring that each virtual machine operates independently, resource conflicts are avoided, and system performance is optimized. The rapid advancement of many types of hypervisors has in turn made it significantly easier to deliver high availability, storage integration, and automatic failover.
The discussion also highlights the comparison between traditional hypervisors like VMware hypervisor and alternatives such as cloud or hyper-converged infrastructure. Surprisingly, the cost of running VMware isn’t due to the hypervisor, VMware ESXi, which is free, but rather the management tools and the complexity associated with traditional virtualization.
One common concern among clients transitioning from VMware is whether their applications will run on Scale Computing's platform. Craig and Dave explain that the vast majority of applications that run on VMware will run just as efficiently on Scale Computing’s HyperCore, as its underlying KVM-based hypervisor is extensively field-tested and capable of supporting a wide range of applications on both Windows and Linux-based operating systems.
Ultimately, what sets Scale Computing’s HyperCore apart is its purposeful design for hyperconverged environments. Instead of beginning with a hypervisor that requires separate shared storage and management layers, SC// HyperCore, a type 1 hypervisor, was built with simplicity and efficiency in mind. Key features, like the integrated storage layer (SCRIBE), allow for seamless movement of virtual machines between nodes in a cluster, without having to incur any downtime. This design principle makes it a perfect fit for deployments in resource-constrained, distributed edge locations.
With tools like Scale Computing’s HyperCore, the complex layers of traditional virtualization are peeled away, providing a simpler, more efficient, and cost-effective solution for modern computing needs.
To watch this or any episode in our SC//Insights series, visit our YouTube channel.