Network Defense Essentials (NDE) 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

A hypervisor is a crucial component in virtualization technology, as it enables multiple virtual machines (VMs) to run on a single physical hardware system. The primary function of a hypervisor is to facilitate communication between the guest operating systems (OS) running on these virtual machines and the underlying physical hardware.

This is essential because guest OSs require a way to interact with the physical resources, such as CPU, memory, storage, and network interfaces. The hypervisor abstracts these hardware resources and allocates them as needed to each guest OS, ensuring that they operate efficiently and securely without interfering with one another. This function is what allows multiple operating systems to coexist on the same physical machine, providing scalability and resource optimization.

In contrast, managing hardware resources exclusively does not capture the full role of a hypervisor, as it also involves interaction with guest OSs. Creating backup images and encrypting data are functions related to data protection and security but are not fundamental responsibilities of a hypervisor itself. Instead, those tasks can be performed by other types of software or tools used in conjunction with virtualization. Therefore, facilitating communication between guest operating systems and hardware is the most accurate representation of a hypervisor's primary function.