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Seems that nested virtualization is becoming popular on public cloud: first with Ravello, this year also on Azure, and now Google Compute Engine supports nested virtualization in beta.

This feature allows you to run one or more virtual machines inside a Compute Engine Linux virtual machine by leveraging Intel VT-x, processor virtualization instructions, to deliver better performance than what’s possible with alternative technologies like emulation.

Nested architecture is like others:

Usually nested virtualization it’s useful for lab. But with reasonable performance makes also possible for enterprise users to move their on-premises, virtualized workloads to the cloud without having to import and convert VM images.

Dev/test and CI/CD workloads that need to validate software in multiple environments are a good match for nested virtualization. Nested virtualization also enables more cost-effective, cloud-based disaster recovery solutions and is ideal for technical training and certification courses where students need identical environments to practice the exercises.

A number of partners participated in our nested virtualization alpha, including Scale Computing and appOrbit.

For more information see this blog post or check the Compute Engine nested virtualization documentation..

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Virtualization, Cloud and Storage Architect. Tech Field delegate. VMUG IT Co-Founder and board member. VMware VMTN Moderator and vExpert 2010-24. Dell TechCenter Rockstar 2014-15. Microsoft MVP 2014-16. Veeam Vanguard 2015-23. Nutanix NTC 2014-20. Several certifications including: VCDX-DCV, VCP-DCV/DT/Cloud, VCAP-DCA/DCD/CIA/CID/DTA/DTD, MCSA, MCSE, MCITP, CCA, NPP.