BOHR International Journal of Intelligent Instrumentation and Computing 2021, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 34–38 https://doi.org/10.54646/bijiiac.006 www.bohrpub.com Virtualization in Distributed System: A Brief Overview Reeya Manandhar and Gajendra Sharma * Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel, Kavre, Nepal * Corresponding author: gajendra.sharma@ku.edu.np Abstract. Virtual machines are popular because of their efficiency, ease of use and flexibility. There has been an increasing demand for deployment of a robust distributed network for maximizing the performance of such systems and minimizing the infrastructural cost. In this paper we have discussed various levels at which virtualization can be implemented for distributed computing which can contribute to increased efficiency and performance of distributed computing. The paper gives an overview of various types of virtualization techniques and their benefits. For eg: Server virtualization helps to create multiple server instances from one physical server. Such techniques will decrease the infrastructure cost, make the system more scalable and help in full utilization of available resources. Keywords: Distributed system, virtualization, hypervisor, technology, virtual machine. INTRODUCTION The concept of virtual machines has been in the computing community since the early 1960s [8]. The recent advance- ment in virtualization technology pursues new opportu- nities in delivering services, and represents a strategic approach for IT operators to increase their organization performance. Virtualization technique offers an isolated secure system with flexible deployment. Such mechanisms maximize the reliability, scalability and fault tolerance of the distributed systems [11]. A distributed system, also known as distributed com- puting, is a system consisting of a collection of independent components located on different machines that commu- nicate and coordinate actions with each other and are linked together using the network. All of the nodes in this network interact and coordinate with each other to com- plete tasks and it appears as a single coherent network to the end-user. The system is highly efficient as the work- load is splitted and distributed to various nodes for fast completion. The task running in different nodes forms a common system where multiple machines can process the same function at the same time. As computation takes place separately on each node, adding additional nodes and functionality as needed is simple, affordable and fault tolerant. Virtualization is the process of creating virtual instances of a computer system abstracted from real resources like OS, storage device or network system. With it, multiple instances can run independently and simultaneously on a single system. Technology advancements have propelled virtualization to the spotlight of the IT sector. This technol- ogy encompasses a variety of mechanisms and techniques that addresses various problems such as performance, reli- ability, security, resource expenses which are the reasons for the rise of this technology. Distributed virtualization is the process of transparently sharing resources from several users [15]. Each node is isolated and doesn’t interfere with each other. It helps the end user to actress, store, analyze and organize the distributed system components. There are various types of virtualizations that can be used to increase the per- formance in distributed systems. Some of them are OS virtualization, storage virtualization, network virtualiza- tion. Each of them has their own paradigm that offers a reliable, secured and cost effective distributed system. This paper gives an overview of virtualization, its type and their benefits. The rest of the paper is organized as lit- erature review in Section , different types of virtualization techniques and their benefits in Section and final section with a conclusion note. LITERATURE REVIEW The paper [2] presents an x86 virtual machine moni- tor, Xen hypervisor that enables multiple operating sys- tems to share conventional hardware in a secure and 34