Virtual Box

Virtual Box is a general purpose, cross-platform virtualization tool for x86 hardware. It provides the ability to virtualize desktop/laptop class machines to create Virtual Machines for use in development and can be deployed in datacenters. Since it is free and open source and can run on windows, linux or mac, it is the easiest way to use virtualization technology on your own machine as part of your development environment. Vagrant is used on top of VirtualBox to automate the provisioning and management of virtual machines (boxes) and is covered in another section. You should become familiar with how to work with VirtualBox on your own development machine and begin to learn about the general principles of virtualization which are applicable across more complex virtualization environments including the cloud.

Goals/Objectives/Outcomes

• Understand how to install VirtualBox and work with its Administration Console
• Understand how to provision and manage virtual machines and install operating systems on them
• Understand how the basic principles of virtualization are applied and used in VirtualBox

Reference Material

• http://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html
• https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/User_HOWTOS
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dbblu_HVROk
• https://ryantrotz.com/2011/11/virtualbox-beginner-tutorial/
• http://www.geekyprojects.com/tutorials/how-to-use-virtualbox-tutorial/
• http://lifehacker.com/5204434/the-beginners-guide-to-creating-virtual-machines-with-virtualbox

Measures of Success

• Participant has demonstrated the ability to perform basic management tasks in VirtualBox including manual provisioning and installation of virtual machines
• Participant is able to articulate the basic principles of virtualization and how they are used in VirtualBox
• Participant has begun the process of learning about more complex virtualization topics such as networking, snapshots and image sharing