Hardware Virtualization

What is hardware virtualization?

Hardware virtualization is the abstraction of physical computing resources from the software that uses those resources. Simply put, when software is used to create virtual versions of hardware instead of using physical, tangible hardware components for some computing function, it is known as hardware virtualization.

Sometimes referred to as platform or server virtualization, hardware virtualization is executed on a particular hardware platform by host software. It requires a virtual machine manager called a hypervisor that creates virtual versions of internal hardware. This enables the hardware resources of one physical machine to be shared among OSes and applications and to be used more efficiently.