Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP) Practice Exam

One of the main purposes of virtual memory is to provide virtual address mapping between applications and hardware memory. This mechanism allows an operating system to use hardware and software to create an abstraction of a continuous memory space, enabling each application to operate in its own memory space independently from others.

By using virtual memory, applications can utilize more memory than what is physically available on the system. It uses a combination of RAM and disk space to create an illusion of a larger memory pool for application processes, which improves system stability and security by isolating different applications from each other. This mapping is particularly important in multitasking environments, as it allows for efficient memory management and allocation of resources.

While other options touch on relevant aspects, they do not capture this main purpose as effectively. For instance, increasing physical memory capacity refers more to hardware upgrades rather than the purpose of virtual memory itself, and caching data typically relates to processor performance rather than memory mapping. The elimination of the need for file system storage misrepresents the role of virtual memory since file systems and memory management serve different purposes within a computer's architecture.