Home > Storage > PowerFlex > White Papers > Installing and configuring Oracle Linux KVM on Dell PowerFlex > Introduction to Oracle Linux KVM
Oracle Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is an open-source virtualization infrastructure for the Linux kernel that allows it to act as a hypervisor. A hypervisor, or virtual machine monitor (VMM), is a hardware, software, or firmware layer that runs virtual machines on a physical host. It does this by virtualizing the hardware, enabling one system to become many. There are two types of hypervisors: Type 1 which runs directly on the physical host; and Type 2 that runs on top of the operating system of the physical host. Oracle Linux KVM is a Type 1 hypervisor as it manages the hardware resources directly rather than Type 2 which relies on the operating system device drivers.
Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager is a server virtualization management platform which is used to configure, monitor, and manage an Oracle Linux KVM environment. Oracle Linux KVM and Oracle Linux Virtualization Manager are two separate components that can be installed in an Oracle Linux environment.