How To Get Virtual Machines in Kenya (Updated for 2023)

Kevin

4 years ago

Last updated on July 12th, 2023 at 07:14 am

Virtual Machines in Kenya

Virtual machines in Kenya are a new but revolutionary concept as you will see in this article.

A virtual machine, also known as a guest, is created within a host, which is another computer.

It’s called a host because it is housing the virtual machine
Guest because the VM is housed inside a physical computer

It turns out you can host multiple virtual machines in one host at a go.

Moreover, a physical computer is comprised of an operating system, hard disk, etc. a virtual machine is made up of a log file, virtual disk file, NVRAM file, and configuration file.

What’s a virtual machine?

This is a piece of software that has capabilities to behave like an actual computer i.e.

Run operating systems
Run applications

VM behaves like a physical computer, but in the real sense, it is a computer file installed on the actual computer and alienated from its operating system so it can run on its own sandboxed environment.

Put simply:

Virtual machines behave as separate distinct computer systems. Alternatively, think of it as a computer inside another computer.

How can you use virtual machines in Kenya?

Since VMs are virtual computer systems, they are perfect for performing the following tasks:

Tasks that are risky if performed by an actual computer such as accessing virus-infected files
Testing operating systems that couldn’t otherwise be possible under normal arrangements
Running software or even applications on OS they weren’t originally made tailored for
Creating computer OS backups
Creating server virtualization – here, you divide a physical server into multiple isolated partitions called virtual servers that can independently run their own OS

One thing makes virtual machines perfect for these tasks:

They run on a sandboxed environment away from the host’s computer system, as mentioned earlier. Consequently, cannot tamper with the host’s system files.

Advantages of Virtual machines

VM allows you to run multiple operating systems on a single host (physical computer)
Virtual machines are easy to manage, maintain, and most importantly, are readily available
Virtual machines make salvaging efforts easier after a disaster such as natural disasters, hardware failure, cyber-attacks, etc. this is because you can use VMs to schedule periodic data backups.

Types of Virtual Machines

There are two types of VMs

System virtual machine – the type that makes it possible to share the host’s physical resources between several guests
Process virtual machines – execute applications without relying on the underlying platform by masking the information of the platform’s OS. This way, the program can be executed in the same fashion anywhere