Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM)
A Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM), also known as a hypervisor, is software that creates and manages virtual machines by providing an abstraction layer between the virtual machines and the physical hardware. The VMM allocates resources like CPU, memory, and storage to each VM and ensures isolation between them. There are two types of hypervisors:
- Type 1 (Bare-Metal): Runs directly on the host’s hardware and controls the hardware to manage guest operating systems (e.g., VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper-V).
- Type 2 (Hosted): Runs on top of a host operating system and supports guest operating systems within it (e.g., VMware Workstation, Oracle VirtualBox).
VMMs are essential for server consolidation, testing environments, and enabling cloud computing services.