Hypervisors

Tools and applications | Hypervisors
A hypervisor (or virtual machine monitor, VMM) is a computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called a host machine, and each virtual machine is called a guest machine. The hypervisor presents the guest operating systems with a virtual operating platform and manages the execution of the guest operating systems. Multiple instances of a variety of operating systems may share the virtualized hardware resources: for example, Linux, Windows, and macOS instances can all run on a single physical x86 machine. This contrasts with operating-system-level virtualization, where all instances (usually called containers) must share a single kernel, though the guest operating systems can differ in user space, such as different Linux distributions with the same kernel.
The term hypervisor is a variant of supervisor, a traditional term for the kernel of an operating system: the hypervisor is the supervisor of the supervisor,[1] with hyper- used as a stronger variant of super-.[a] The term dates to circa 1970;[2] in the earlier CP/CMS (1967) system the term Control Program was used instead.Hypervisor
KVM
KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V). It consists of a loadable kernel module, kvm.ko, that provides the core virtualization infrastructure and a processor specific module, kvm-intel.ko or kvm-amd.ko.
Using KVM, one can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc.
KVM is open source software. The kernel component of KVM is included in mainline Linux, as of 2.6.20. The userspace component of KVM is included in mainline QEMU, as of 1.3.
Blogs from people active in KVM-related virtualization development are syndicated at http://planet.virt-tools.org/
VirtualBox
VirtualBox is a powerful x86 and AMD64/Intel64 virtualization product for enterprise as well as home use. Not only is VirtualBox an extremely feature rich, high performance product for enterprise customers, it is also the only professional solution that is freely available as Open Source Software under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2.
VMWare Workstation Player
VMware Workstation Player is an ideal utility for running a single virtual machine on a Windows or Linux PC. Organizations use Workstation Player to deliver managed corporate desktops, while students and educators use it for learning and training.
The free version is available for non-commercial, personal and home use. We also encourage students and non-profit organizations to benefit from this offering.
Xen Server
Xen (pronounced /ˈzɛn/) is a type-1 hypervisor, providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently. It was developed by the University of Cambridge and is now being developed by the Linux Foundation with support from Intel.
The University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory developed the first versions of Xen. The Xen Project community develops and maintains Xen Project as free and open-source software, subject to the requirements of the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2. Xen Project is currently available for the IA-32, x86-64 and ARM instruction sets.[2]
Notice: XenServer.org has been decommissioned as of March 31, 2019. This new landing page provides links to Citrix Hypervisor content and resources available on citrix.com and developer.citrix.com.
Proxmox
Proxmox VE is a powerful open-source server virtualization platform to manage two virtualization technologies – KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) for virtual machines and LXC for containers – with a single web-based interface. It also integrates out-of-the-box-tools for configuring high availability between servers, software-defined storage, networking, and disaster recovery.
HyperV
Microsoft Hyper-V, codenamed Viridian[1], formerly known as Windows Server Virtualization, is a native hypervisor; it can create virtual machines on x86-64 systems running Windows.[2] Starting with Windows 8, Hyper-V superseded Windows Virtual PC as the hardware virtualization component of the client editions of Windows NT. A server computer running Hyper-V can be configured to expose individual virtual machines to one or more networks. Hyper-V was first released with Windows Server 2008, and has been available without additional charge since Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8. A standalone Windows Hyper-V Server is free, but with command line interface only.
VMWare ESXI
Discover a robust, bare-metal hypervisor that installs directly onto your physical server. With direct access to and control of underlying resources, VMware ESXi effectively partitions hardware to consolidate applications and cut costs. It’s the industry leader for efficient architecture, setting the standard for reliability, performance, and support.
Open Nebula
If you were looking for an open source, enterprise-ready solution to build your Elastic Private Cloud, well, you just found it! Combine VMware and KVM virtual machines for fully virtualized clouds, LXD system containers for containerized clouds, and Firecracker micro-VMs for serverless deployments. Integrate them with cloud providers like AWS, Azure and Packet and create flexible hybrid and edge cloud infrastructures.

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