Definition
A virtual machine cluster is a collection of interconnected physical servers that host and manage multiple virtual machines (VMs). This configuration provides scalability, high availability, and resource optimization for virtualized applications.
Virtual Machine Cluster Applications
- Cloud providers: Cloud service providers use VM clusters to offer cloud computing resources to their customers.
- Data centers: Modern data centers use VM clusters to enhance hardware efficiency, reduce downtime, and ensure redundancy.
- Enterprise IT: Large organizations use VM clusters to run various applications on their infrastructure.
- Development and testing: Developers and testers use VPM clusters to mimic product environments, allowing them to test applications in a sandboxed environment and replicate the production configuration.
- Disaster recovery: VM clusters can help businesses recuperate quickly from outages or disastrous events by replicating data and applications across geographically dispersed clusters.
- High-performance computing (HPC): Some HPC environments use VM clusters to deliver scalable computational power, especially for tasks that can be executed in parallel across multiple virtual machines.
- Hosting providers: Hosting companies use VM clusters to provide virtual private servers (VPS) and ensure better resource allocation to their clients.
- Educational institutions: Most educational institutions use VM clusters for research and provide infrastructure to various departments.
- Container orchestration: VM clusters can be used as the underlying infrastructure for container orchestration systems.