⊿ Point. {R} Glossary. ◢ Keyword: H. ▰ Sources. 〓 Books [B] ◥ University. {q} PhD. ⏫ THEMES. ⏫ Big Data. [B] Big Data. ⚫ USA. ↂ EndNote. ☝️ BD Dummies. Hypervisor. A hypervisor or virtual machine monitor (VMM) is a piece of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor is running one or more virtual machines is defined as a host machine. Each virtual machine is called a guest machine. The hypervisor presents the guest operating systems with a virtual operating platform and manages the execution of the guest operating systems.
Multiple instances of a variety of operating systems may share the virtualized hardware resources. Classification[edit] Type-1 and type-2 hypervisors In their 1974 article "Formal Requirements for Virtualizable Third Generation Architectures" Gerald J. Type-1: native or bare-metal hypervisors These hypervisors run directly on the host's hardware to control the hardware and to manage guest operating systems. Type-2: hosted hypervisors These hypervisors run on a conventional operating system just as other computer programs do.
Mainframe origins[edit] x86 systems[edit]