What is the primary function of a hypervisor in a virtual environment?

The primary function of a hypervisor in a virtual environment is to run multiple virtual machines. A hypervisor is a software layer that enables the virtualization of physical hardware, allowing several operating systems to operate independently on the same physical machine. By managing the resources of the host machine and allocating them to the various virtual machines (VMs), the hypervisor ensures that each VM operates with its own isolated environment while sharing the underlying physical resources, such as CPU, memory, and storage.

In this capacity, the hypervisor plays a crucial role in maximizing resource utilization, improving scalability, and facilitating efficient management of IT workloads across multiple VMs. Each VM can run different operating systems or applications, thus providing flexibility in deploying various services.

Other choices relate to important functions or components of a virtual environment, but they do not encapsulate the core purpose of a hypervisor. Managing physical hardware resources is a broader function that includes various roles, while creating virtual networks and storing data backups are specific tasks that may be associated with virtualization technologies but are not the defining purpose of a hypervisor.