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A hardware virtual machine (VM) is a software-defined computer that presents virtual hardware to a guest operating system. A hypervisor creates and manages the VM, assigning it access to resources from a physical computer called the host.
What a hardware virtual machine means
A hardware virtual machine—also called a system virtual machine—provides an environment capable of running an entire operating system. The guest OS sees virtual processors, memory, storage, and network interfaces as its computer, while those resources ultimately come from the host’s physical hardware. IBM describes a VM as “a virtual representation or emulation of a physical computer that uses software instead of hardware to run programs and deploy applications.” IBM’s virtual-machine overview explains the term and its uses.
A useful analogy is separate apartments in one building: each guest has a defined space, but the host is the shared physical structure and the hypervisor manages allocation and separation. The analogy has limits: a VM is not physically independent of its host.
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- Host: The physical computer that supplies computing resources.
- Hypervisor: Also called a virtual machine monitor, this software layer creates and manages VMs and coordinates their access to host resources.
- VM: The software-defined computer and its virtual hardware environment.
- Guest: The operating system running inside a VM.
Several guest operating systems can run on one host under hypervisor management. Microsoft’s Hyper-V overview describes how a hypervisor works with virtual processors, memory, virtual hard disks, and virtual switches. The available device models and features vary by hypervisor and configuration; a VM does not necessarily emulate every physical component in the same way.
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Hardware VMs are different from process VMs
A system VM provides a machine environment for a guest operating system. A process VM, by contrast, supports an individual application or process within an existing operating system. The Java virtual machine (JVM) is an example of a process VM, not a virtual computer running a whole guest OS. IBM’s overview of virtual machines explains this distinction.
Type 1 and type 2 hypervisors
The type describes where the hypervisor runs—not whether the guest is a “real” VM.
| Type | Where it runs | Examples and context |
|---|---|---|
| Type 1 (bare-metal or native) | Directly on the physical hardware | IBM identifies VMware ESXi as a type 1 example used for server virtualization. Microsoft describes Hyper-V as a type 1 hypervisor. |
| Type 2 (hosted) | As an application within a host operating system | IBM identifies Oracle VM VirtualBox as a type 2 example and notes hosted virtualization can suit individual PC use cases. |
These architecture labels do not by themselves establish which setup is faster or safer for a particular workload. Performance and isolation depend on implementation, configuration, workload, and hardware. See IBM’s hypervisor overview for the type distinction and examples, and Microsoft’s Hyper-V documentation for its platform-specific description. Microsoft says Hyper-V runs directly on computing hardware and describes its performance and isolation in the context of Hyper-V; that wording should not be generalized to every hypervisor.
What a hardware VM does—and does not—imply
- It can run a guest operating system in a virtual machine environment.
- Its virtual CPU, memory, storage, and network resources are backed by the physical host.
- Its available virtual devices and capabilities depend on the hypervisor and configuration. Microsoft’s Hyper-V terminology and planning documentation describes platform-specific VM hardware resources and features.
- It is not a separate physical computer, even when the guest OS behaves as though it has its own machine.
A brief historical note
IBM says it rolled out VM/370 on 2 August 1972, describing it as what many regard as the first virtual machine. That is IBM’s qualified historical account, not an unqualified claim that virtual-machine ideas began on that date. IBM’s account places VM/370 alongside System/370 mainframes that supported virtual memory.
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