What is the purpose of isolation in virtual machines?

The purpose of isolation in virtual machines is primarily to prevent one virtual instance's failure from affecting others. This means that if one virtual machine encounters an error, crashes, or experiences resource exhaustion, the other virtual machines running on the same physical hardware continue to operate unaffected. This feature is crucial in environments where multiple instances need to run simultaneously without interference.

Isolation ensures stability and reliability within a virtualized environment. It creates boundaries that segregate the operating systems and applications running in different virtual machines, allowing them to operate independently. This protective measure is essential for maintaining overall system integrity and performance, especially in scenarios such as cloud computing or shared hosting environments, where resources are allocated dynamically and multiple tenants share the same underlying infrastructure.

While aspects like speed of operations, shared resources, and security are important in virtualization, the primary aim of isolation is to safeguard each virtual machine from the others' potential issues, ensuring a robust and stable operating environment.