Which of the following statements about hypervisors is true?

A hypervisor operates between the hardware and the operating system, which is the defining characteristic of its function. This layer allows multiple operating systems to run concurrently on a physical machine by abstracting and managing the underlying hardware resources.

This operation fundamentally enables virtualization, allowing each virtual machine to run its own operating system as if it were running on dedicated hardware. By managing hardware resources, hypervisors provide better resource utilization, flexibility, and isolation of applications across different environments.

The other options do not accurately describe the function of hypervisors. For example, stating that a hypervisor operates at the application level misrepresents its role, as it interacts directly with hardware rather than at the application layer. Similarly, while some hypervisors, specifically Type 1 or bare-metal hypervisors, do not require a secondary operating system and can operate directly on hardware, others may run alongside a host OS. Lastly, while hypervisors enable the support of virtual machines, they do much more than just that, including managing resources and providing services for those machines.