Virtual Machine

Problem

Two customers want to run completely different operating systems on the same physical server. They need strong isolation while sharing expensive hardware.

Solution — Virtual Machine

A hypervisor presents virtual hardware to each VM.

VM Linux ───┐
VM Windows ─┼→ Hypervisor → Hardware
VM Linux ───┘

Each VM runs its own operating system.

Core idea: virtualization lets multiple isolated machines share one physical machine.