What are the differences between desktops/laptop and servers? What are virtual machines and why are they so useful? What are the pros and cons of virtualizing operating systems?
@chrisulloa
In today’s world, computers are one of the most reliable tools humanity is entitled to use. Not just because it has proven to be extremely useful in the business world, but also because it provides entertainment, human interaction and information from all parts of the world. Although, computers provide the same services despite of its difference, all major computer brands have important differences in its OS’s, speeds, designs and purposes of use. Even the virtual OS’s provide huge advantages and differences that need to be understand. Here are some of the differences between desktops, laptops, servers and virtual machines.
Desktops back in the day were very popular among the population until laptops made its appearance. Nowadays, most of the people use laptops because of its portability and practicality. Although, laptops use the same OS as the desktops, the advantages desktops have over the laptops are considerable. Even though, desktops cannot be taken everywhere, desktops are great stationary machines that may provide a greater memory space and modifications that will allow the desktop computers to become super computers with the right modification process that many laptops cannot provide. Another important difference between laptops and desktops is the lower risk of being stolen or forgotten in a taxi cab. It is important to think of this difference because many of us store very important information in computers that in the case of being stolen or forgotten will cause a great damage to a company or a person. Desktops, because of its non-portable design provides a safer-to-use machine that laptops cannot provide. In the other hand, Servers unlike computers are meant for providing the services computers need to be able to use its full potential. Servers share the same OS as computers with the difference that these OS have greater speeds and are configured to be use for servers only. The Servers also provide computers the ability to use the services for web browsing, email and data storage among other services. The biggest difference from Servers and computers is that servers provide services to hundreds or thousands of computers while computers can also be use as servers but only provide service to very few computers.
Virtual machines are like an ancient language not many people know. Virtual machines with its very useful features are very unknown by the people, that in the case of needing a different OS the only option is to buy a new computer that may cost a few hundred dollars. The advantages of using a virtual machine are enormous. Virtual machines allow us to use many OS’s without the need of buying new computers. In the case of education, virtual machines give us the ability to explore many different operating systems without putting in risk the important information stored in our computers, this is one of the most important reasons for using VM. With all the fear of Malwares in the network VM’s allow us to explore many websites and software that in the normal computer we would be afraid to install. The only cons of using VM’s might be the price which in some cases may be expensive but thinking about the integrity of our data, it is worth it.
In conclusion, OS’s have considerable differences that are meant to be use in many ways. Although, computer at the end offer us the same benefits the cost, design, purpose and knowledge will influence the buying decision when choosing a computer or server. Thanks to the advance in technology, people now have different options when installing a Virtual machine to explore the network. Being safe is the main reason for most of our decisions over the network and virtual machines provide that in a virtual world which in relativity does not exist.