HYPERVISOR

A hypervisor of virtual machine monitor is a computer software, firmware or hardware that create and runs virtual
machines.
A hypervisor is a program that would enable hosting several different virtual machines on a single hardware. Each
one of these virtual machine or operating system will be able to run its own program .
The hypervisor abstracts --isolates--operating system and application from underlying computer hardware.
The computer hardware on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machine is called host machine and each
virtual machine is called a guest machine.
The hypervisor present the guest operating system with a virtual operating platform and manages the execution of
the guest operating systems. Multiple instances of various operating system can share the virtualized hardware
resources, for ex, Linux, Windows and OS X instances can all run on a single physical machine.
This contrast with Operating-System-Level Virtualization where all instances, usually called containers, must share a
single kernel. Though the guest operating system can differ in user space, such as different Linux distributions with
same kernel.
The host machine or physical server would execute the hypervisor and the hypervisor, in turns, would loads the
operating system of the virtual machines. The hypervisor allocates the correct CPU resources, memory , bandwidth
and disk storage space for each guest virtual machine.
A virtual machine can create requests to the hypervisor through a variety of methods, including API calls.
A hypervisor makes the underlying hardware details irrelevant to the VMs. This allows VM mobility, where VMs can
be migrated between any local or remote virtualized servers ( with sufficient computing resources). The migration with
effectively zero disruption to the VM. This feature often termed as Live Migration.

Type of Hypervisor

There are two types of hypervisor:

Type-1,Bare Metal or Native Hypervisors
Type-2,Embedded or Hosted Hypervisor

Type-1, Bare Metal or Native Hypervisors

These hypervisors run directly on the host's hardware to control the host hardware and to manage the guest operating
system.
For this reason they are called bare metal hypervisors.

Type 1 hypervisor, is virtualization software that has been installed directly onto the computing hardware.\
Bare-metal hypervisors feature high availability and resource management; they also provide
better performance, scalability and stability because of their direct access to the hardware.
Ex:
Microsoft Hyper-V
Vmware ESX/ESXi
Oracle VM Server for x86,
KVM,
Citrix XenServer

Type-2,Embedded or Hosted Hypervisor

These hypervisors run on a conventional operating system just as other computer programs do. A guest operating system
runs as a process on the host. Type-2 hypervisors abstract guest operating systems from the host operating system.
Type 2 hypervisors support guest virtual machines by coordinating calls for CPU, memory, disk, network and other
resources through the physical host's operating system. This makes it easy for an end user to run a virtual machine on a
personal computing device.

For Example
VMware Workstation,
 VMware Player
VirtualBox
Parallels Desktop for Mac
QEMU

The distinction between these two types is not necessarily clear. Linux's Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
and FreeBSD's bhyve are kernel modules that effectively convert the host operating system to a type-1 hypervisor at the
same time, since Linux distributions and FreeBSD are still general-purpose operating systems, with other applications
competing for VM resources, KVM and bhyve can also be categorized as type-2 hypervisors.

Typically, a Type 1 hypervisor is more efficient than a Type 2 hypervisor, yet in many ways they both provide the same type
of functionality because they both run the same kind of VMs. In fact, you can usually move a VM from a host server running
a Type 1 hypervisor to one running a Type 2 hypervisor and vice versa. A conversion may be required, but the process
works.

Because they run directly on the hardware, Type 1 hypervisors support hardware virtualization. Because they run as an
application on top of an operating system, Type 2 hypervisors perform software virtualization.

What are hypervisors used for?

Hypervisors are important to any system administrator or system operator because virtualization adds a crucial layer of
management and control over the data center and enterprise environment.

Staff members not only need to understand how the respective hypervisor works, but also how to operate supporting
functionality such as VM configuration, migration and snapshots.
The role of a hypervisor is also expanding. For example, storage hypervisors are used to virtualize all of the storage
resources in the environment to create centralized storage pools that administrators can provision -- without having to
concern themselves with where the storage was physically located. Today, storage hypervisors are a key element
of software-defined storage. Networks are also being virtualized with hypervisors, allowing networks and network devices
to be created, changed, managed and destroyed entirely through software without ever touching physical network devices.
As with storage, network virtualization is appearing in broader software-defined network or software-defined data center
platforms.

Type 1 hypervisors are VM monitors that are designed to keep track of all of the events that occur within a VM and, when
required, provide -- or deny -- access to appropriate resources to meet VM operating requirements. Ideally, the VM monitor
will perform its operations through the use of policies that contain all of the settings assigned to a particular VM. Consider
a hardware virtualization hypervisor when you need to perform any of the following:

System consolidation: Virtualization hypervisors support the operation of multiple systems on the same physical
hardware, reducing costs and the physical server footprint while delivering similar and often improved services.

System testing: Hypervisors support the isolation of systems, letting you test new software and applications without
affecting production. They also provide a low-cost testing alternative to physical systems.

Heterogeneous system operation: Hypervisors support the simultaneous execution of multiple operating systems on
the same physical hardware, letting organizations run heterogeneous systems on reduced hardware footprints.

Hardware optimization: Hypervisors increase hardware usage through the operation of multiple workloads on each
physical host server. Server usage can increase from 5% to 10% to upwards of 60% or 70%.

Application high availability: By sharing workloads through technologies such as failover clustering, servers running
virtualization hypervisors can support application high availability and ensure that services are always available when
running inside VMs.

Resource optimization: By running different applications in separate VMs, hypervisors can increase resource use
because each application requires a number of resources at different times.

Service flexibility: Because hypervisors support the operation of systems through VMs, organizations gain flexibility
because VMs are easier to clone and reproduce than physical machines.

Dynamic resource management: Virtualization hypervisors support manual or automated resource allocation to VM
workloads as peak usage occurs. Because of this, hypervisors provide better support for dynamic resource allocation in
data centers.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANATAGES OF HYPERVISOR