117-304 · Question #86
What is the main technical advantage that will be available on a server after installing virtualization technologies such as Xen or KVM?
The correct answer is D. It will be possible to share physical resources between insulated execution environments. See the full explanation below for the reasoning.
Question
What is the main technical advantage that will be available on a server after installing virtualization technologies such as Xen or KVM?
Options
- AThe execution time of processes which use the CPU intensively will be reduced.
- BThe computing power of the server will be increased.
- CThe number of running kernel instances will be limited to one.
- DIt will be possible to share physical resources between insulated execution environments.
- EIt will be possible to create virtual networks.
How the community answered
(45 responses)- A2% (1)
- B2% (1)
- C7% (3)
- D76% (34)
- E13% (6)
Community Discussion
7
Yusuf A.Oct 28, 2025D is the right answer here. Virtualization layers like Xen and KVM sit between the hardware and the OS, and their whole job is to carve up physical resources, CPU time, RAM, disk I/O, into isolated slices that each guest OS thinks it owns entirely. My senior walked me through a Xen setup last month and the key point he kept repeating was that the hypervisor enforces those boundaries so one VM crashing or going rogue cannot touch memory belonging to another VM on the same host. The other options are traps, virtualization actually adds overhead so CPU-intensive workloads get a tiny bit slower, not faster, computing power is not magically increased, you typically run multiple kernel instances not one, and while virtual networks are possible they are a secondary feature, not the main technical advantage the question is after.
Nina C.Nov 1, 2025E tripped me up, but D is what virtualization is actually for.
Anjali D.Nov 1, 2025Option E is tempting because it sounds efficiency-related, but D nails the core use case, though I would add that resource consolidation often drives the cost savings people associate with E in the first place.
Anjali D.Nov 8, 2025Our group went back and forth on this one, and C was the big distractor because some folks instinctively associate virtualization with "one kernel to rule them all," but that's actually backwards. With Xen or KVM you can run multiple guest kernels, each isolated in its own domain or VM, so the kernel count goes up, not down. E is tempting too because you absolutely can create virtual networks on top of these platforms, but that's a downstream capability, not the core technical advantage the question is pointing at. The fundamental thing Xen and KVM give you is the hypervisor layer that lets multiple isolated execution environments, each with its own OS, share the same physical CPU, RAM, and storage, which is exactly what D describes, so that is the answer we landed on unanimously. Anyone else want to weigh in on whether E deserves more credit, or does everyone agree it's a side effect rather than the primary purpose of the technology?
Samuel O.Nov 12, 2025D is right, virtualization carves up physical hardware so multiple isolated VMs share the same box.
Brenda K.Oct 21, 2025C, one kernel, clock is ticking, move on.
Nina C.Oct 23, 2025Hey Brenda, I get the time pressure but I think D is actually the right one here, because C only covers part of the scenario and D accounts for the full condition the question is describing.