Intel virtualization technology

TLDR

Virtualization, once limited to specialized servers, is now widely available on Intel hardware, where performance gains reduce traditional overhead and a virtual machine monitor (VMM) provides a new software layer that manages access to host resources. The VMM arbitrates host resource access and presents each guest OS with virtual platform interfaces, while Intel’s hardware virtualization support simplifies VMM implementation. Resulting VMMs can support a wider range of legacy and future operating systems while maintaining high performance.

Abstract

A virtualized system includes a new layer of software, the virtual machine monitor. The VMM's principal role is to arbitrate accesses to the underlying physical host platform's resources so that multiple operating systems (which are guests of the VMM) can share them. The VMM presents to each guest OS a set of virtual platform interfaces that constitute a virtual machine (VM). Once confined to specialized, proprietary, high-end server and mainframe systems, virtualization is now becoming more broadly available and is supported in off-the-shelf systems based on Intel architecture (IA) hardware. This development is due in part to the steady performance improvements of IA-based systems, which mitigates traditional virtualization performance overheads. Intel virtualization technology provides hardware support for processor virtualization, enabling simplifications of virtual machine monitor software. Resulting VMMs can support a wider range of legacy and future operating systems while maintaining high performance.