Virtual Machine Architecture: Understanding Limitations and Benefits

What is the limitation of virtual machine architecture?

a. Portability and machine platform independency

b. Simplicity of software development

c. Simulation for disaster working model

d. Overhead due to the new layer

Final answer:

The limitation of virtual machine architecture is the overhead caused by the new layer introduced by the hypervisor.

Explanation: Overhead due to the new layer. In detail, an overhead or additional computational resource requirement is one of the significant drawbacks of virtual machine architecture. As a new layer atop the hardware, the virtual machine manager (also known as hypervisor) handles all the requests from virtual machines, which can result in performance overhead and latency. While options a, b, and c have their own merits, they are actually some of the benefits of virtual machine architecture, not its limitations. Portability, simplified software development, and disaster modeling are generally seen as advantages of this architecture. To conclude, the primary limitation of virtual machine architecture is the added overhead due to the new layer introduced by the hypervisor. Every operation performed by a virtual machine must now go through an additional layer, increasing the time and computational power required to implement operations.