A Virtual Machine (VM) is a software-based emulation of a physical computer that runs an operating system and applications. It operates in an isolated environment created by a hypervisor or Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) on a physical host machine. The hypervisor manages and allocates the host's resources, such as CPU, memory, and storage, among multiple VMs.
Each VM behaves like a self-contained computer, enabling users to run different operating systems on the same physical hardware. This virtualization technology provides advantages like improved resource utilization, efficient management of workloads, easy portability, and the ability to create snapshots for backups or testing scenarios. VMs have become fundamental in modern computing, powering cloud infrastructure, server consolidation, and development environments.