Information Technology Specialist (ITS) Cybersecurity Practice Exam

What is a virtualized application that consists of its dependencies called?

1. Virtual machine

2. Container

3. Hypervisor

4. Router

The correct answer is: Container

A virtualized application that consists of its dependencies is referred to as a container. Containers are designed to package an application along with all its necessary components, such as libraries and configuration files, directly with the application code. This allows the application to run reliably in different computing environments, as the container encapsulates everything needed for execution. The use of containers promotes consistency across development, testing, and production environments, thereby simplifying the deployment process and enhancing scalability. Containers are lightweight compared to virtual machines, as they share the same operating system kernel while still isolating the application processes. This separation enables efficient resource utilization and faster start-up times. This concept stands in contrast to a virtual machine, which simulates complete hardware and includes a full operating system, leading to heavier resource consumption. A hypervisor, on the other hand, is software that creates and manages virtual machines, rather than the applications themselves. Routers function in networking by directing traffic and are unrelated to application virtualization. Therefore, containers effectively fulfill the requirement of encapsulating applications with their respective dependencies.