What Is a Type 1 Hypervisor?

Sometimes called a “bare metal hypervisor” or “native” because it runs directly on a bare metal physical server, a type 1 hypervisor has direct access to the hardware. With a type 1 hypervisor, there is no operating system to load as the hypervisor that you load IS the operating system.

With a type 1 hypervisor, there is no operating system to load as the hypervisor that you load IS the operating system.

Contrary to a type 1 hypervisor, a type 2 hypervisor loads inside an operating system, just like any other application. Because the type 2 hypervisor has to go through the operating system and is managed by the OS, the type 2 hypervisor (and its virtual machines) will run less efficiently (slower) than a type 1 hypervisor.



Here’s a great graphic from that illustrates the difference between Type 1 and Type 2:

(graphic thanks to Wikipedia)

The graphic shows the Type 1 hypervisor where the hypervisor is the “host” and the guest operating systems that run in the virtual machines are called the “Guests”. With a Type 2 hypervisor, the hypervisor is “hosted” in the host OS. The virtual machine guest operating systems are still called “guests”.

So what are some examples of popular virtualization hypervisors in use at enterprises, today? See my post on that exact topic at: The 5 Enterprise Type 1 Hypervisors You Must Know