Virtualization
Virtualization is an abstraction layer that decouples the physical hardware from the operating system to deliver greater IT resource utilization and flexibility.
Virtualization allows multiple virtual machines, with heterogeneous operating systems, to run in isolation and side-by-side on the same physical machine. Each virtual machine has its own set of virtual hardware (i.e., RAM, CPU, NIC, etc.) upon which an operating system and applications are loaded. The operating system sees a consistent, normalized set of hardware regardless of the actual physical hardware components.

