White Paper: Virtualization Throughout The Software Lifecycle

By Sarah N. Crutchfield

The features of virtualization can benefit system developers and system owners throughout the software development lifecycle. A virtual machine allows multiple isolated operating systems to run concurrently and independently on one physical computer. The benefits of virtualization include: multiple operating system environments, isolated software configurations, and reduced physical computing resources.

As software development teams move through the software development lifecycle new software versions are created to continuously improve the end user product. Software revisions result in better quality software for the end user, but also require considerable effort to continue support of all previously installed revisions. This effort can be reduced through the use of virtual machines. Instead of having multiple legacy hardware and software systems sitting idle or spending numerous hours setting up a computer with a specific legacy software version, developers can now store a simple file containing the entire operating system configuration. These virtual machine files save money by reducing hardware costs and engineering time.

In a pharmaceutical production environment a computer failure can result in days of equipment downtime, and replacing computer hardware with an identical system can be difficult due to the speed of change in computer technology. The impact of a hardware failure can be reduced through the use of a virtual machine, because it is hardware independent and contains its own virtual resources. The entirevalidated computer configuration is wrapped neatly into one file that can be copied for storage and placed on a new computer in the event of a hardware failure, reducing risk and revalidation efforts.

This presentation not only introduces the audience to system virtualization technology, but also provides specific applications in which this technology benefits system developers and pharmaceutical industry end users.