What is the primary function of hypervisors?

The primary function of hypervisors is to divide physical resources for virtual environments. A hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM), acts as an intermediary layer between the hardware of a physical server and the multiple virtual machines that run on top of it. It allocates and manages the physical resources, such as CPU, memory, and storage, and ensures that each virtual machine operates independently and efficiently.

By doing so, hypervisors enable multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine concurrently, maximizing resource utilization and allowing for greater flexibility in managing systems and deployments. This functionality is essential in various environments, including data centers and cloud computing, where resource optimization and scalability are critical.

In contrast, creating physical servers pertains to hardware provisioning rather than the virtualization and resource management performed by hypervisors. Installing operating systems is a task typically handled by system administrators or automated deployment tools, rather than the hypervisor itself. Lastly, managing network security falls outside the scope of what hypervisors do, although virtual machines can indeed be secured in various ways, the hypervisor's primary role is resource allocation and virtualization.