Which hypervisor type is commonly provided to enterprises at no licensing cost?

Which hypervisor type is commonly provided to enterprises at no licensing cost?

• A. Type 1
• B. Open Source
• C. Proprietary
• D. Type 2

Answer: (B)

Open source hypervisors are typically available without licensing fees, making them a popular choice for enterprises looking to virtualize without per-license costs. Their source code is freely distributed under licenses that allow use, modification, and deployment, so you can install and run them across many servers without paying for licenses. For example, KVM (often included with Linux) and Xen are widely used in production deployments precisely because they don’t require upfront licensing. Of course, you may still incur costs for support, tooling, and integration, but the licensing itself is not a barrier. In contrast, many other hypervisor types emphasize how they run (bare-metal vs hosted) or are associated with proprietary licensing models, which is why they’re not the option that’s commonly provided at no licensing cost.

Open source hypervisors are typically available without licensing fees, making them a popular choice for enterprises looking to virtualize without per-license costs. Their source code is freely distributed under licenses that allow use, modification, and deployment, so you can install and run them across many servers without paying for licenses. For example, KVM (often included with Linux) and Xen are widely used in production deployments precisely because they don’t require upfront licensing. Of course, you may still incur costs for support, tooling, and integration, but the licensing itself is not a barrier. In contrast, many other hypervisor types emphasize how they run (bare-metal vs hosted) or are associated with proprietary licensing models, which is why they’re not the option that’s commonly provided at no licensing cost.