A type 1 hypervisor is sometimes referred to as a bare-metal hypervisor as it is typically deployed directly onto the hardware of the physical server. In this model, any operating system that is installed on the hypervisor has direct access to the hardware resources, such as the CPU, RAM, and Network Interface Card (NIC). This model allows each guest operating system to interact directly with any hardware component available on the physical device; therefore, rendering the deployment model more efficient than the type 2 model.

The following diagram illustrates how each guest operating system (virtual machine) interacts with the physical hardware components of a single physical server chassis through the hypervisor. For example, virtual machines have direct access to the physical hardware through the hypervisor:

The following is a list of both free and commercial type 1 hypervisors:

• VMware ESXi (free)
• VMware ESX (commercial)
• Microsoft Hyper-V Server (free)
• XCP-ng (free/commercial)

Now you have a better understanding of the type 1 hypervisor, let's learn about the type 2 hypervisor.