[Jessica Jagerson]

Explain at least three differences between a virtual and a cloud environment.

[Carlos Martes]

A virtual environment an a loud environment share similarities, but they are different in key ways. First, a virtual environment runs on a local server or computer where multiple virtual machines share the same physical hardware. A cloud environment, on the other hand, delivers these resources over the internet from remote data centers. Second, virtual environments usually require the organization to buy, manage and maintain its own hardware, while cloud environments reduce that burden by letting third party provider handle infrastructures. Third, scalability differs in which virtual environments have limited capacity based on existing hardware, while cloud environments allow quick scaling up or down on demand making them more flexible and cost efficient. In short, virtualization focuses on creating multiple systems on one machine, while cloud computing delivers shared on demand resources remotely, combining virtualization with network access, storage and managed services.

[Isabelle Tubbs]

Hi, Carlos! Virtual and cloud environments are both important ways of managing the resources of a company, but it is true that they do have key differences. I like that you mentioned the differences of where virtual and cloud environments operate, who must manage the resources, and how their scalability works.

[Isabelle Tubbs]

The first difference between a virtual environment and a cloud environment is how they share resources. A virtual machine uses the resources of one physical computer and allocates it to create several environments. A cloud environment does not share the resources of one computer, rather it is giving the cloud’s collective resources to the devices that need it across the internet (Sweeney, 2023). As a result, a second difference is that they use different tools. Virtualization uses a hypervisor to create a virtual machine, while cloud computing uses the internet to achieve its tasks. Finally, virtual environments and cloud environments are different in how they can adjust to the company’s size. For example, if a company grows and needs to adjust for more resources, the cloud can be adjusted flexibly, but a virtual environment may require more physical servers (Bulut, 2024).

References
Bulut, B. (2024, May 21). The Differences Between Cloud Servers and Virtual Servers. FibaCloud. https://www.fibacloud.com/content/compute/the-differences-between-cloud-servers-and-virtual-servers/
Sweeney, G. (2023, January 18). Virtualization Vs Cloud Computing: How To Easily Differentiate Both. V2Cloud Solutions. https://v2cloud.com/blog/virtualization-vs-cloud-computing

[Carlos Martes]

Great explanation Isabelle!
You made it clear how virtual cloud environment’s differ. Virtualization relies on one computers resources to create multiple machines, while cloud computing pulls from many computers over the internet. That helps how why cloud computing is more flexible for scaling up or down, especially for business that grow quickly. I also like how you pointed out that virtualization needs a hypervisors, while cloud computing relies on internet based tools. The difference is important since it shows the technology behind both methods.

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