Perhaps no innovation in information technology history has saved more money for more enterprises than virtualization, yet the technology goes mostly unheralded and underappreciated. By reducing the need for purchasing additional and ever more expensive hardware — and at the same time, maximizing the capacity of whatever hardware is available — virtualization has truly changed the way information technology is deployed at both the enterprise and the consumer level.

This quick glossary, written by Mark W. Kaelin for TechRepublic Premium, provides virtualization terms and concepts that will give you a basic foundation on the technology and how it works.

• Featured definition from the download:

  Hypervisor

  The thin layer of operational software that provides the supporting infrastructure for virtualization. This software allows the virtual machine to communicate with the host hardware and any connected peripherals, such as printers, storage devices, and networks.

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TIME SAVED: Crafting this content required 14 hours of dedicated writing, editing, research, and design.