Internet-based virtual computing infrastructure for cloud computing

Virtualisation is massively important in computing and continues to develop. This chapter discusses and evaluates the virtualisation technologies and in particular, a state-of-art system called iVIC (the Internet-based Virtual Computing) developed by Beihang University, China as it provides an all-in-one example of many of the major headline Cloud Computing titles of SaaS, IaaS, and HaaS. The chapter considers several virtualization packages which are either commercial, community, or experimental, before focusing on iVIC, a virtual machine cloning system that may be beneficial in a learning or office environment. The chapter introduces a test environment which is used to assess the performance of the iVIC process and the virtual machines created. Power requirements of virtual, as opposed to physical machines, are compared and evaluated. The chapter closes with conclusions regarding virtualisation and iVIC.