Palo Alto Networks (PANW) Certified Cybersecurity Entry-level Technician (PCCET) Practice Exam

What allows multiple, virtual operating systems to run concurrently on a single physical host computer?

1. Serverless Computing

2. Micro-VMs

3. Virtual Machines

4. Hypervisor

The correct answer is: Hypervisor

The correct choice, which is hypervisor, is a layer of software that enables multiple virtual operating systems to operate on a single physical host. It abstracts the hardware of the host machine, allowing it to allocate resources such as CPU, memory, and storage to each virtual machine (VM) running on it. Hypervisors work by managing the virtual machines and ensuring that they can operate independently while utilizing the underlying hardware efficiently. This virtualization technology allows for improved resource utilization, scalability, and isolation among the different operating systems, enabling organizations to run multiple environments on a single piece of hardware. In contrast, while virtual machines are the instances created by using a hypervisor, they cannot function or run concurrently without the hypervisor to manage them. Micro-VMs are a specific type of lightweight virtual machine designed for containerized workloads, but they are still dependent on hypervisor technology. Serverless computing focuses on building applications without managing the infrastructure, but it does not address the need to run multiple operating systems on a single host. Therefore, the hypervisor is the essential component that makes concurrent operation of multiple virtual operating systems possible on one physical machine.