A virtual machine (VM) is an computer system that is emulated on top of a physical host machine. It appears to the user as a genuine computer system and can run a variety of operating systems such as Windows, Linux or macOS. VMs are well-known because they permit multiple environments to be hosted on a single server, which could result in significant savings for businesses.

Typically, each VM is the “guest” of the host machine, which provides hardware resources like processors, hard disk drives, memory and network connections. Therefore, companies can have multiple VMs on the same host machine, giving flexibility that allows IT infrastructure to grow or shrink according to a proven way to manage board meetings in an online space the need. This flexibility can also help decrease the amount of time IT teams are able to spend on deploying and managing software updates, since they can manage it on a server-by-server basis rather than managing each physical machine.

There are two kinds of VM hypervisors Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 hypervisors are more efficient because they run directly on a host device without the need for an OS full-blown. Type 2 hypervisors direct each VM request to the host operating system. This can slow down processing speed and add costs.

Virtual machines can improve IT security and also disaster recovery. Since a virtual environment is independent of the underlying hardware that makes it easier to restore data from the VM than physical machines in the event of a failure or natural catastrophe. This can prevent data loss and downtime which could directly impact your company’s bottom line.