If you have intranet access, internet access, or both already established, virtualization can then be used to create clouds, though it’s not the only option. This is the layer that gives users independence across public, private, and hybrid environments. At the base of cloud computing is a stable operating system (like Linux®). To put it simply, virtualization is a technology, where cloud is an environment.Ĭlouds are usually created to enable cloud computing, which is the act of running workloads within that system.Ĭloud infrastructure can include a variety of bare-metal, virtualization, or container software that can be used to abstract, pool, and share scalable resources across a network to create a cloud. However, virtualization is a technology that allows you to create multiple simulated environments or dedicated resources from a single, physical hardware system, and clouds are IT environments that abstract, pool, and share scalable resources across a network. It’s easy to confuse virtualization and cloud, particularly because they both revolve around creating useful environments from abstract resources.