Intel virtualization technology

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.