Xen is a Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) originally developed by the Systems Research Group of the University of Cambridge Computer Laboratory, as part of the UK-EPSRC funded XenoServers project. It provides powerful virtualization technology that enables multiple virtual machines to run in parallel on a physical server, thereby making full use of hardware resources and improving system utilization and flexibility. It is a type-1 (bare-metal) virtualization platform, which means that Xen runs directly on the physical hardware without the need for an operating system as an intermediary layer. This architecture enables Xen to have lower virtualization overhead, closer to native performance, and provide superior performance and reliability.
