What is a virtual machine and what are its benefits?

Virtual Machine refers to a complete computer system which is simulated by software, has complete hardware system functions and runs in a completely isolated environment.

The virtual system has exactly the same function as the real windows system by generating a brand-new virtual image of the existing operating system. After entering the virtual system, all operations are carried out in this brand-new independent virtual system. You can install and run software independently, save data, have your own independent desktop, and have no influence on the real system. There is an operating system that can be flexibly switched between the existing system and the virtual image.

Extended data:

Virtual machine technology was first put forward by IBM in the 1960s and 1970s, and it was defined as the software simulation of hardware devices. The common usage mode is time-sharing of expensive hosts. Virtual machine monitor (VMM) is the core of virtual machine technology. It is a layer of code between the operating system and computer hardware, which is used to divide the hardware platform into multiple virtual machines.

VMM runs in privileged mode, and its main function is to isolate and manage multiple virtual machines running in the upper layer, arbitrate their access to the underlying hardware, and create a virtual hardware environment (including processors, memory and I/O devices) independent of the actual hardware for each guest operating system. VMM uses some scheduling algorithms to share CPU among virtual machines, such as time slice rotation scheduling algorithm.

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