Understanding Virtual Machines

Virtual machines are the fundamental components of virtualization. They are the containers for traditional operating systems and applications that run on top of a hypervisor on a physical server. This chapter focuses on how virtual machines work in relation to the physical machines they reside on, and takes the initial steps in understanding how virtual machines are managed. Like its physical counterpart, virtual networking provides a virtual machine with a way to communicate with the outside world. Each virtual machine can be configured with one or more network interface cards (NICs) that represent a connection to a network. Snapshots are pretty much just what they sound like, a capturing of a virtual machine's state at a particular point in time. Open Virtualization Format (OVF) is a standard created by an industry‐wide group of people representing key vendors in the various areas of virtualization.