Simulation vs emulation vs virtualisation ....

So, that was an interesting thought, there is a blur of ideas in many research papers I have read where I have wondered if the authors actually know the difference between emulation, simulation and virtualisation. I am not going to claim to be the definite source on this one, but here goes.

Emulation : it pretends to be the environment, such as a gaming console, where the 'code' in the guise of ripped ROMs are tricked into thinking that they are running on their host platform. Emu's run like the real thing, but are not. There tends to be no interaction between the emulator and the underlying system, where the emu is effectively the application.

I have used emulators for the SNES, Sega MegaDrive and my old ZX spectrum.

Virtualisation: it acts like the real thing, pretending to be 'real hardware'. Therefore an operating system does not know if its on bare metal or within the virtualisation environment. By virtue of its affordance, the hypervisor within the virtualisation provides a conduit to the system resources. Where many virtualised system can run on the same host unaware that are in an abstract environment. 

There are many server based, cloud based and client based virtualisation resources. In fact there are virtual network switch and router systems out there.

As you can see, Virtualisation and Emulation have close similarities but are clearly different.

Then there is simulation, this is not the real system in any shape or form but has the potential to create an environment where the novice can practice different skills in a 'safe enclosure'. Flight simulators, are clearly not the real thing but offer an affordance that can prepare pilots and spotty teens for the real experience.

Comment is welcome, there are some products that are borderline between each. But for networking, I have seen variations of each, wishing that there was a better way to catagorise the tools.

Comments

  1. server virtualization15 March 2012 at 11:28

    Being a Dell employee, I think your blog on Simulation vs emulation vs virtualisation is very interesting to read. One of the types of virtualisation is server virtualisation which is also beneficial in many ways.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown10 March 2016 at 12:39

    Thank you, I think this blog is very helpful on drawing the line between simulation vs. visualization. I understood that, simulation is creating a similar version of the system with minimum requirements that makes it similar enough and sufficient to mimic the real system but virtualisation is creating the same exact system but in software. Are you saying that the difference is how much the system we are using is similar to the real system?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous12 February 2018 at 10:07

    Thanks for your overview about this evergreen topic.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If airlines offer in-flight Wi-Fi, they should invest in an extra black box for security ...

Image
Yijun Yu , The Open University and Andrew Smith , The Open University In-flight Wi-Fi is one of the most sought-after facilities for air travellers these days, now that laptops and smartphones are so common and so much of our working and personal life revolves around online services. But a US Government Accountability Office report has suggested that many in-flight wireless networks could expose the plane to being hacked or remotely controlled . In fact it’s of such a concern to US authorities that when a well-known computer security expert made an admittedly ill-thought-out joke about doing so on Twitter, he was promptly arrested, his computers confiscated, and subsequently banned from the airline . And all he was suggesting was to make the oxygen masks drop down. So it would appear that the stuff of Hollywood may jump from fiction to fact: Liam Neeson and Julianne Moore starred in the 2014 film Non-Stop , where a passenger hacking the aircraft’s internal wirel...
Read more

Wikipedia editors never walk alone: Hillsborough changes can be traced ... from @ConversationUK

Image
By Andrew Smith , The Open University According to the Liverpool Echo , UK government computers have been used to make offensive comments on the Wikipedia page detailing the 1989 Hillsbourgh Disaster over a number of years. The newspaper reports that revisions to the page have been made from computers using the government’s secure intranet since 2009. They include insults to Liverpool fans and a comment suggesting that fans were responsible for the football ground disaster, in which 96 people died. This case highlights the continual issue of trolling and cybervandalism on Wikipedia. It also shows how journalism is using good, technical forensic tools at the disposal of every cybercitizen. Cybercitizens can be good or bad So many of us use Wikipedia on a daily basis that it is one of the most visited websites in the world. Yet not that many of us really understand how it works. Wikipedia is based on the principle that the community can create, edit and refine pages covering...
Read more

Highlights and lowlights of 2014, a golden year for cybercrime from @ConversationUK

Image
Looking back, 2014 was not a good year for keeping things safe under digital lock and key. If a score was being kept, it might seem that the cybercriminals are in the lead, despite the valiant efforts – and own goals – from the cybersecurity profession worldwide. Cast your mind back to March , everyone was panicking about the HeartBleed bug. Based on an error in code upon which the majority of the world’s secure servers relied, experts had plenty of time to fix the issue. Sadly there was an array of conflicting information about changing passwords, leading to widespread confusion. While most IT administrators made sure this was managed in a professional manner, it created a stir that seemed to set the tone for the year. In May , online auction giant Ebay admitted to having been compromised. The site said its systems, with personal details of tens of millions of users, may have had been vulnerable for months. Everyone was advised, indeed forced, to change their password. In the...
Read more