Type 1 Hypervisor
Type 1 Hypervisor also refer as native Hypervisor or Bare Metal Hypervisor. It operates directly on the host hardware to control and manage the hardware and each virtual machine operating system. Native hypervisor was the first hypervisors developed by IBM as well as SIMMON test software. It had CP/CMS operating system. Examples for Type 1 Hypervisor will be KVM, Microsoft Hyper V, Oracle VM Server and others.
Type 2 Hypervisor
Type 2 Hypervisor also refer as Host Operating System Hypervisor. It will run on any operating system just like other computer programs. Imagine there is an operating system. Then a hypervisor runs on top of the OS and provides a virtual environment to run another OS. So a visitor operating system is running as a process on the host. Examples for Type 2 Hypervisor will be VirtualBox, VMware Workstation and VMware Player.
The Difference Between Hypervisor Type 1 and Type 2
The Definition
Type 1 hypervisor or called Bare Metal or native Hypervisor runs directly on the host hardware to manage and control the hardware as well as the visitor operating systems.
Type 2 hypervisors which is Host OS Hypervisor runs like a normal computer program on an operating system.
Virtualization
Type 1 hypervisor support hardware virtualization while Type 2 hypervisor supports operating system virtualization.
Scalability
Type 1 hypervisor has better scalability than Type 2 hypervisor as Type 2 hypervisor relies on the underlying OS.
Security
Type 1 hypervisor is more secure than Type 2 hypervisor as the base operating system in Type 2 hypervisor will affect the entire system as well as the protected Hypervisor.
Performance
Type 1 hypervisor has a very good performance as did not have a middle layer while Type 2 hypervisor runs with extra overhead causing it to have reduced performance.
Summary
There are two types of hypervisors which are Type 1 and Type 2. Both can create virtual machines. Type 1 Hypervisor operate directly on the host hardware while Type 2 Hypervisor operates similar to a computer program on an operating system. Type 1 Hypervisor is better than Type 2 Hypervisor.
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