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Cloud Computing & DevOps vocabulary · Servers and Virtual Machines

Virtual machine

Meaning in cloud computing & devops, with examples

/ˈvɜrtʃuəl məˈʃiːn/nounCore term

In cloud computing & devops, virtual machine means: A complete computer, with its own operating system, that runs as software on a physical machine. One physical server can host many virtual machines at once.

In Turkish: sanal makine, sanal sunucu, VM

How it is used

Usually shortened to VM, said 'V-M'. You create, start, stop, resize and delete VMs. On AWS a VM is called an EC2 instance; Azure and Google Cloud use the term virtual machine or VM directly.

Example sentences

  1. I created a small virtual machine to test the new Linux version before we upgrade.

  2. Unlike a container, a virtual machine needs a few minutes to boot its full operating system.

Common collocations

  • create a virtual machine
  • VM size
  • spin up a VM
  • virtual machine image
  • guest operating system
  • hypervisorSoftware that creates and runs virtual machines, sharing one physical computer's CPU, memory and storage between them and keeping them separate.
  • instanceOne running copy of a virtual server or service in the cloud. You choose its size, such as how many CPUs and how much memory it has, and pay while it runs.
  • serverA computer, physical or virtual, that runs services and answers requests from other computers over a network, for example by sending web pages or data.
  • containerA lightweight, isolated package that holds an application together with everything it needs to run, so it behaves the same on a laptop, a test server or in the cloud.
  • spin upTo quickly create and start a new server, container or environment, usually with a command or a few clicks.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Servers and Virtual Machines

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