What is the role of a hypervisor in virtualization?

The role of a hypervisor in virtualization is to enable multiple virtual machines to run on a single physical machine. Hypervisors create and manage virtual machines (VMs) by abstracting the underlying hardware resources, allowing each virtual machine to operate as if it has its own dedicated hardware. This maximizes resource utilization, as the physical server's CPU, memory, and storage can be shared among multiple VMs, providing efficiency and flexibility in IT resource management.

In addition, hypervisors allow for different operating systems to run on the same physical hardware, which can enhance testing and development environments or enable diverse applications to coexist without interference. By orchestrating the distribution of computing resources, a hypervisor plays a critical role in cloud computing and data center virtualization strategies.