1) Big data is growing exponentially and new frameworks like Hadoop are needed to analyze large, unstructured datasets.
2) Hadoop uses distributed computing and storage across commodity servers to provide scalable and cost-effective analytics. It leverages local disks on each node for temporary data to improve performance.
3) Virtualizing Hadoop simplifies operations, enables mixed workloads, and provides high availability through features like vMotion and HA. It also allows for elastic scaling of compute and storage resources.