Virtual Machine: Glossary

Key Points

Introduction
  • A virtual machine is an emulation of a computer system that can run within another host system.

  • A hypervisor is a program that creates virtual machines from virtual machine image files and runs them virtually.

  • Virtual machines can be used to run over CMS open data in a very intuitively way. However, they take up a lot of resources, are less efficient than real machines, and harder to use for batch processing.

Hiring a hypervisor
  • To install VirtualBox in your machine (the host), follow the installation instructions and run them in your device.

Recruiting the labor force
  • To install the 2011 CMS VM, download the appropriate VM image (version 1.5.3), import it into VirtualBox and launch it.

Test and validate
  • The CMS VM contains all the required ingredients to start analyzing CMS open data.

  • In order to test and validate the virtual machine you can run a simple CMSSW job.

Glossary

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