The Hypervisor

The hypervisor is what makes virtualization possible. The hypervisor is the component that translates the virtual machines into the underlying hardware. There are two types of hypervisors: The type 1 hypervisor runs directly on the host hardware; the type 2 or hosted hypervisor runs in software. In addition, some proprietary hardware has a hypervisor built into the hardware. The hypervisors that we are concerned with are the type 1 and type 2 hypervisors.

Type 1 Hypervisor

The type 1 (or embedded) hypervisor is a layer that runs directly on the host hardware, interfacing with the CPU, memory, and devices. Oracle VM and VMware ESX Server both use the type 1 hypervisor. The hypervisor treats the host OS in much the same way as a ...

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