What does a hypervisor do in a virtualized environment?

A hypervisor plays a crucial role in a virtualized environment by managing hardware resources for virtual machines. It acts as an intermediary layer between the physical hardware and the virtual machines (VMs) that run on it. The hypervisor allocates and manages the physical resources, such as CPU, memory, and storage, ensuring that each virtual machine operates efficiently and has the necessary resources to function.

In a virtualized setup, the hypervisor enables multiple operating systems to run on a single physical machine. It abstracts the underlying hardware, allowing each VM to operate as if it has its own dedicated set of hardware resources. This provides flexibility, improves resource utilization, and allows for easier management and scaling of computing resources.

While executing applications, compiling programming languages, and providing network security are important functions in computing environments, they are not the primary roles of a hypervisor. The hypervisor's main focus is on resource management and facilitating the virtualization of hardware to support multiple simultaneous operating systems.