GIAC Cybersecurity Technologies Practice Test 2025 – Complete Exam Prep

The software or firmware platform that hosts a virtual machine is known as the hypervisor. It acts as a layer between the physical hardware and the virtual machines, allowing for the creation, management, and operation of multiple virtual machines on a single physical host. The hypervisor allocates resources like CPU, memory, and storage to each virtual machine, enabling them to run independently of one another.

In contrast, a guest system refers to an individual virtual machine that runs on the hypervisor. It is the operating system and applications operating within the virtual environment. A container is a lightweight alternative to virtual machines, focusing on application-level virtualization and sharing the host operating system's kernel, rather than running a separate OS for each instance. The operating system itself is the software that manages the computer hardware and software resources and provides common services for computer programs, but it does not specifically define the virtualization layer. Therefore, the hypervisor is the correct term that identifies the platform enabling virtualization.