What does 'Virtual Machines (VMs)' mean?

Virtual Machines (VMs) are a fundamental feature of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) providers, enabling users to create and manage scalable, on-demand computing environments. A VM is a software-based emulation of a physical computer that runs an operating system and applications independently. IaaS providers offer pre-configured and customizable VMs with varying compute, memory, and storage capacities to support diverse workloads, including web hosting, application development, and high-performance computing. VMs enhance resource utilization by allowing multiple instances to run on a single physical server, improving efficiency and cost-effectiveness. They also provide flexibility, enabling seamless deployment, migration, and scaling within cloud infrastructures.