One of the technologies that intrigues and excites me, both as a computer user and as a technical communicator, is virtualization. I’ve been following the progression of virtualization for a while and it’s something that not only has a number of uses it also appeals to my inner geek.

But what exactly is it? In an article that I wrote about virtualization software, I described it as:

a form of software sleight of hand. The trickery involved enables a computer to run two or more operating systems simultaneously.

While it’s overly simplistic, I think the description works.

But what does this have to do with technical writing? Potentially quite a bit. Read on to find out more.

Virtualization and technical writing

Who knows, maybe you’ll wind up working for a vendor of virtualization software. In that case, you’re going to need (and not just want) to know something about it.

Or you might work at a client that uses virtualization to some degree. If you’re documenting the infrastructure or operational procedures for that latter, you’ll definitely need something more than just a cursory knowledge of virtualization to help you get the job done.

Case in point: my last full-time, salaried position was with a company called uptime software. The company was, and still is, heavily into virtualization. Working there, I got a great crash course in various aspects of virtualization technology which I’m expecting to use in the future.

Virtualization as part of your toolkit

We live and work in a world of multiple operating systems. While most people, technical communicators included, spend most of their time in Windows there’s always the chance that they’ll need to work with another OS.

I’ve had several gigs in which the platform for my client’s apps was Linux or Solaris. While you can, for example, use a Live CD to get up to speed on these operating systems, why not use virtualization instead? It’s faster and doesn’t require any rebooting.

As you may or may not know, my operating system of choice is Linux. Sometimes, though, I need to use Windows applications and as I’ve found out, some of the applications that I need don’t work with WINE or CrossOver Office. Dual booting isn’t something I’m fond of, so I installed some Open Source virtualization software called VirtualBox on my laptop.

When I need to use Windows, I just fire up VirtualBox and run the my Windows virtual machine. It’s quick, simple, and efficient.

Going virtual

No matter your reason for going virtual, there are several ways in which you can do it. I recommend VirtualBox. It’s Open Source; runs on Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Solaris; and it’s very flexible. Here’s an article I wrote about it a couple of years back.

VMware is arguably the main player in the virtualization world. With the company’s no-cost VMware Player software you can test drive other operating systems fairly easily. To use it, though, your computer needs a CPU that supports hardware virtualization. I don’t have much experience with Player, so I can’t give you my impressions.

If you’re a Mac user, you might want to check out Parallels Desktop. From what I’ve seen, Parallels has some nifty features. Not only can you run various versions of Windows and older versions of Mac OS with it, you can also run Linux, FreeBSD, and DOS. On top of that, you can drag and drop text and images between applications.

Then there’s Windows Virtual PC. To be honest, I don’t know much about this one. Besides the fact that it enables you to run various versions of Windows and a few flavours of Linux.

Sources of information

Even if you don’t use virtualization in any capacity, it can’t hurt to learn a bit about it. A good first stop is the documentation for VMware’s products and the user guide for VirtualBox.

You can also find some good articles on virtualization here, here, and here.

If you just want to brush up on your virtualization terminology, then there are resources for that, too.

But no matter how you slice it, virtualization is going to be around for a while. It’s better to know enough about it to be dangerous than to be caught out.

What’s your experience with virtualization technology, either as a user or as a writer? Feel free to share that experience by leaving a comment.

Photo credit: © Eti Swinford | Dreamstime.com

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