Virtualization Essentials

The first thing they did when computers went mainstream was fire all the proof readers and editors....that said....it is as well written as it can be since so few people take a writing course and believe spell check is the god of the written word. If you need this book for a class get the cheapest version since well written it is not...easy to understand it is not, repetitive it is in spades!.

dont buy from this guy..he wont refund anything..even if you dont take this class

Very concise, but maybe won't give you the biggest bank for your buck if you don't know much about how computers work already.Absolutely great book though, easy read and the chapters stray from being verbose.

It's a good beginners overview of virtualization with a focus on VMWare player and virtual box. The content is pretty good in that regard; however, there is at least one important glaring error in the side panel discussing memory that should have been fact checked by the editor. The author of the side note conflates significantly faster but temporary Random Access Memory (RAM, SDRAM, etc) with much slower persistent storage such as hard drives (HDDs), Solid State Drives (SSDs), Flash memory cards, or NVRAM. The statement in the side note comparing an Apple iPad's 128GB of flash memory to the main memory (RAM) of any other computer is incorrect. A quick check of Wikipedia for that model shows that the A7 processor used in the referenced iPad had a maximum of 1 or 2 GB of actual Random Access Memory etched on the chip. That 1 or 2 GB value is the one that should be used for comparison to a laptop or desktop possessing the typical 2, 4, 8, or 16 GB of memory. There were a few more errors of a similar nature throughout the book in addition to a number of significant proofreading errors that all should have been caught. That said, it's no where near as horrible (proof reading wise) as most of the self (and even professionally) published electronically distributed material on line and even in kindle books.

The structure of this book makes sense for the topic, the information conveyed is relevant, useful, and, for the most part, at the right level of abstraction. It provides not only the broad picture of virtualization, but also the information you need to know to dig deeper on more specialized topics.

Great book for my class at ivy tech.

Good book. Easy to read. Got an A in the class.

Easy to read and practical overview of the subject. Very approachable and instructive for people new to virtualisation and it covers a range of topics and practices in the area.

The content of the book is good, but the quality of the paper and printing leaves something to be desired. All the Sybex books I've gotten in the past have been printed in color and have glossy high quality pages. Not this one. It is in black and white and has non-gloss pages. It even says in the back of the book that it has "four color images" or something of the sort, but this is not the case.Considering I paid more for this than previous Sybex books, I don't think it unreasonable to expect the same quality of product.

I come from no virtualisation background and found the book to be easy to read and comprehend.Appreciate books still printed in the United States and this is one of them.Nice spacing, text size is not too small, easy to grab and hold the book while reading.Book definitely targeted at beginners and if you already are a professional in this field, the book is not for you.My main concern is (like other reviewers mentioned) that, yes, it needs updating. Not in the context of the technology and its deployment but things like: software version numbers illustrated, talks about "...in 2010 the use of virtualisation is this..." when it's 2019 at the time of this review.I believe if the publisher released Third Edition now (especially in this fast evolving IT generation), this book will be 6 stars. Book's easy to read, keeps you engaged, and content flow is in the right direction. If I have to get extra picky about this book, well, they could've printed in colour but then that will increase the cost of the paperback book.Happy reading.

Virtualization Essentials is a fine introductory text and really hits its target audience spot-on. The initial chapters explain where virtualization came from, and why it has become so important in cloud technology today. It explains the difference between the virtualization that underpins cloud technology and the desktop packages like VMWare Player that we use to host operating systems in our desktop environment, and then goes on to practical exercises that you can walk through yourself using freely downloadable software. Later chapters zoom in to the specific details of tuning memory, CPU and peripherals (sound, USB, networking etc) and there is even a little about containers.If you just want a start in understanding how to use virtualization from a technical point-of-view, this is an ideal book; also if you just want to understand virtualization from a management point-of-view, then a read through the first three chapters and a leaf through the rest of the book will stand you in good stead.

This title is an introduction to the fundamentals of virtualization, the technology whereby multiple virtual PCs or servers run on a single physical PC or server. Virtualization is incredibly useful at every level, from individuals running virtual machines on the desktop for test and development, to enterprises running thousands of virtual machines in a datacenter, with the flexibility to create, remove, copy, scale up or downsize servers at will.The author, Matt Portnoy, is an industry veteran who according to the blurb is a staff systems engineer at VMware as well as a teacher in the fields of virtualization and database technology.In 14 chapters Portnoy covers what virtualization is, what a virtual machine is, and the essentials of managing CPUs, memory, storage and networking in a virtual environment. There is also a look at creating high availability virtual machines, and a brief look at deploying applications.There are some hands-on examples covering creating VMs with either VMware Workstation Player or Oracle VirtualBox.Now, a few observations. This is a well-written book with a ton of useful background on the topic. I can see it working well as a textbook for a course and maybe that is what it is designed for. It would also be useful for a computing professional up to a point, but I do wonder whether a pro would be better off with a book dedicated to a particular virtualization technology rather than one that does its best to be generic, though with a strong VMware slant (which is not surprising given the author’s background).Personally I would like to have seen more coverage of Microsoft’s Hyper-V, given that it is now built into every version of Windows including Windows 10 (though not the Home edition), but although there are a few mentions of Hyper-V here, all the examples are VMware or Virtual Box.Still, that just highlights the issue: if you are working with VMware you won’t need the Hyper-V stuff and vice versa.This is the second edition of a book first published in May 2012. I don’t have the earlier edition, but the chapter titles are all the same. A lot has happened in those four years, in particular the explosion of cloud computing and containerization, and I would like to have seen more coverage of these topics. Containers are mentioned but only briefly; I think the subject would merit a dedicated chapter.Despite the above, this is a good choice if you want to learn about virtualization at a conceptual level. If you are looking for a practical guide you might be better served by a title specific to the virtualization technology you want to use.

I work with virtual environments every day having been in IT for over 10 years. I've probably read lots of good stuff about virtualisation and I use it at home for everything from file servers to virtual testing environments. What I probably haven't ever done is sat down and considered why virtual machines and virtualising the data center is a great idea. Matthew Portnoy's book actually made me do that in the first three chapters - which I found fantastic at giving me an overview of the history and early implementation of VMs. Although biased towards VMWare technologies (nothing wrong with that - I use ESXi at work) the principles and examples in the book would actually suit all virtual environments. If you've ever wondered what this "virtual thing" is all about - and you probably should - then this is a great place to start. The book is conversational, not too deep and yet covers a broad range of virtualisation topics: creating and installing a VM; managing your host resources (such as CPU, memory and storage); availability (a hot topic right now) and virtual applications. There are even some cool additional exercises available at the end of the book to take each chapter a bit further. Starting out in virutalisation? Buy this. Need a light overview of virtualisation? Buy this. Love reading about the subject and just want to add another book to your collection that might even reveal something you didn't know? Buy this book. Highly recommended for these and many more reasons.