A Hyper-V virtual machine (VM)

 A Hyper-V virtual machine (VM) is a software version of a computer that runs on a physical server. Hyper-V is a virtualization platform that allows users to run multiple VMs on the same hardware. 

Benefits of Hyper-V VMs

• Hardware efficiency: Consolidate servers and workloads onto fewer, more powerful physical computers 
• Flexibility: Run more than one virtual machine on the same hardware at the same time 
• Scalability: Build an easily scalable virtual environment 
• Business continuity: Minimize the impact of downtime 
Software testing: Provide a safe sandbox for developers to test software 

Hyper-V on Windows

Hyper-V is built into most versions of Windows 
It's included in Pro and Enterprise editions of Windows NT (since Windows 8) 
Hyper-V Server is a free stand-alone product 

Managing Hyper-V VMs

Hyper-V Manager is used to manage all running VMs 
Network Address Translation (NAT) gives a VM access to the computer's network 

You can also watch this video to learn how to create a virtual machine in Hyper-V: