Which of the following is not a characteristic of virtualization?

• A. Isolation
• B. Partitioning
• C. Network Storage
• D. Encapsulation

Answer: (C)

Virtualization creates abstract, isolated environments from physical hardware, and its defining characteristics come from how it manages those environments. Isolation ensures each virtual environment runs independently, so processes or VMs don’t interfere with each other. Partitioning divides the physical resources—like CPU time, memory, and I/O—into separate portions that different VMs can use without overlapping. Encapsulation bundles a virtual machine’s state, configuration, and disk data into a single unit that can be moved, backed up, or recreated easily. Network storage, while commonly used in virtualized setups, is a storage technology rather than a fundamental property of virtualization itself. It describes where data lives and how it’s accessed, not how virtualization creates and manages virtual resources. So network storage isn’t a characteristic of virtualization.