In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardware, software, or a combination of the two.
Virtual machines differ and are organized by their function, shown here:
System virtual machines (also called full virtualization VMs) provide a substitute for a real machine. They provide the functionality needed to execute entire operating systems. A hypervisor uses native execution to share and manage hardware, allowing for multiple environments that are isolated from one another yet exist on the same physical machine. Modern hypervisors use hardware-assisted virtualization, with virtualization-specific hardware features on the host CPUs providing assistance to hypervisors.
Process virtual machines are designed to execute computer programs in a platform-independent environment.
Some virtual machine emulators, such as QEMU and video game console emulators, are designed to also emulate (or "virtually imitate") different system architectures, thus allowing execution of software applications and operating systems written for another CPU or architecture. OS-level virtualization allows the resources of a computer to be partitioned via the kernel. The terms are not universally interchangeable.
In computing, a virtualmachine (VM) is the virtualization or emulation of a computer system. Virtualmachines are based on computer architectures and...
A Java virtualmachine (JVM) is a virtualmachine that enables a computer to run Java programs as well as programs written in other languages that are...
In computer security, virtualmachine escape is the process of a program breaking out of the virtualmachine on which it is running and interacting with...
Virtual DOS machines (VDM) refer to a technology that allows running 16-bit/32-bit DOS and 16-bit Windows programs when there is already another operating...
In computing, a system virtualmachine is a virtualmachine (VM) that provides a complete system platform and supports the execution of a complete operating...
Parallel VirtualMachine (PVM) is a software tool for parallel networking of computers. It is designed to allow a network of heterogeneous Unix and/or...
as a virtualmachine monitor (VMM) or virtualizer, is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtualmachines. A computer...
Platform virtualization software, specifically emulators and hypervisors, are software packages that emulate the whole physical computer machine, often...
Application virtualization software refers to both application virtualmachines and software responsible for implementing them. Application virtualmachines are...
format for the packaging and distribution of software to be run in virtualmachines". The OVF standard is not tied to any particular hypervisor or instruction...
Parrot is a discontinued register-based process virtualmachine designed to run dynamic languages efficiently. It is possible to compile Parrot assembly...
Comparison of virtualmachines may refer to: Comparison of platform virtualization software Comparison of application virtualmachines In this list platform...
In computing, virtualmachine introspection (VMI) is a technique "for monitoring the runtime state of a system-level virtualmachine (VM)", which is helpful...
The Maxine virtualmachine is an open source virtualmachine that is developed at the University of Manchester. It was formerly developed by Sun Microsystems...
This article provides non-exhaustive lists of Java SE Java virtualmachines (JVMs). It does not include every Java ME vendor. Note that Java EE runs on...
Oracle VM VirtualBox (formerly Sun VirtualBox, Sun xVM VirtualBox and InnoTek VirtualBox) is a hosted hypervisor for x86 virtualization developed by Oracle...
The Perl virtualmachine is a stack-based process virtualmachine implemented as an opcodes interpreter which runs previously compiled programs written...
Virtualmachining is the practice of using computers to simulate and model the use of machine tools for part manufacturing. Such activity replicates the...
In hardware virtualization, the host machine is the machine that is used by the virtualization and the guest machine is the virtualmachine. The words...
x86 virtualization is the use of hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities on an x86/x86-64 CPU. In the late 1990s x86 virtualization was achieved...
over multiple passes. The name LLVM originally stood for Low Level VirtualMachine, though the project has expanded and the name is no longer officially...
and virtualization technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. VMware was the first commercially successful company to virtualize the x86...
officer, in the Ethereum Yellow Paper that specified the Ethereum VirtualMachine. Subsequently, a Swiss non-profit foundation, the Ethereum Foundation...
Virtual PC is an x86 emulator for PowerPC Mac hosts and a virtualization app for Microsoft Windows hosts. It was created by Connectix in 1997 and acquired...
VMDK (short for VirtualMachine Disk) is a file format that describes containers for virtual hard disk drives to be used in virtualmachines like VMware Workstation...