Virtual Machine

Noun · Development

Definitions

  1. A software emulation of a complete computer system that runs its own operating system and applications in isolation from the host. System VMs (like those managed by KVM, Xen, or VMware) virtualize hardware; process VMs (like the JVM or CLR) provide a platform-independent bytecode execution environment.

    In plain English: A simulated computer running inside a real computer, complete with its own operating system, isolated from everything else on the machine.

    Example: "Each tenant gets their own VM on the hypervisor so a noisy neighbor can't hog all the CPU or peek at another tenant's memory."

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