Key Components

Physical Servers (Hosts)

Powerful computers with significant CPU, RAM, and storage resources that run the hypervisor and host the VMs.

Hypervisor

The core software layer (e.g., VMware ESXi and KVM) that sits between the physical hardware and the VMs. It abstracts the hardware resources and allocates them to the different VMs running on the host.

Storage

Virtual disk files for the virtual machines.

Networking

Physical network interface cards (NICs) in the hosts, switches, and routers, along with virtual switches (vSwitches) managed by the hypervisor to connect VMs to each other and to the physical network.

Management Software

Tools (like Proxmox Virtual Environment and VMware vSphere) used to centrally manage the hosts, VMs, storage, and networking. This allows for tasks like creating VMs, migrating them between hosts, monitoring performance, and automating tasks.