What is a virtual machine?

VMs, or Virtual Machines, are software-based emulations of physical computers that run an operating system and applications just like a real computer. They allow multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine by using a hypervisor to allocate resources such as CPU, memory, and storage. VMs are commonly used for testing, development, server consolidation, and running legacy applications. They offer flexibility, isolation, and efficient use of hardware resources, making them popular in cloud computing environments.