Chapter 1. General Introduction to Virtualization

Virtualization is a broad computing term used for running software, usually multiple operating systems, concurrently and in isolation from other programs on a single system. Virtualization is accomplished by using a hypervisor. This is a software layer or subsystem that controls hardware and enables running multiple operating systems, called virtual machines (VMs) or guests, on a single (usually physical) machine. This machine with its operating system is called a host. There are several virtualization methods:

For information about the benefits of using virtualization, see Chapter 2, Why Use Virtualization?