A virtual machine, or VM, is a self-contained virtualization of an operating system.
VMs provide straightforward provisioning, high availability, and maintainability. DigitalOcean Droplets are Linux VMs.
There are two types of VM:
A process virtual machine, or process VM, is a platform-independent environment which allows users to run multiple separate computer architectures or operating systems within one hardware.
A system virtual machine, or system VM, is a fully-virtualized VM of a real machine, where the VM includes an entire operating system (OS).