A VM behaves in the same way as a physical computer, but it's a software computer that runs an OS and applications supported by the host's provided resources. A VM supports all the same functionalities and devices as a physical machine, but it's easier to manage and more secure.

Typically, a VM can be configured to run on ESXi hosts, data centers, clusters, or resource pools, and includes three main components:

• Virtual and hardware resources
• Virtual machine tools
• Guest operating system