•More reliable: Due to the hardware support, VMMs can now be smaller, less complex, and more efficient. This improves reliability and availability and reduces the potential for software conflicts.
•More secure: The use of hardware transitions in the VMM strengthens the isolation of VMs and further prevents corruption of one VM from affecting others on the same system.
Intel® VT-x Features
The processor supports the following Intel
•Extended Page Table (EPT) Accessed and Dirty Bits
—EPT A/D bits enabled VMMs to efficiently implement memory management and page classification algorithms to optimize VM memory operations, such as de- fragmentation, paging, live migration, and
•Extended Page Table Pointer (EPTP) switching
—EPTP switching is a specific VM function. EPTP switching allows guest software (in VMX
•Pause loop exiting
—Support VMM schedulers seeking to determine when a virtual processor of a multiprocessor virtual machine is not performing useful work. This situation may occur when not all virtual processors of the virtual machine are currently scheduled and when the virtual processor in question is in a loop involving the PAUSE instruction. The new feature allows detection of such loops and is thus called
The processor core supports the following Intel
•Extended Page Tables (EPT)
—EPT is hardware assisted page table virtualization.
—It eliminates VM exits from the guest operating system to the VMM for shadow
•Virtual Processor IDs (VPID)
—Ability to assign a VM ID to tag processor core hardware structures (such as TLBs).
—This avoids flushes on VM transitions to give a
•Guest Preemption Timer
—Mechanism for a VMM to preempt the execution of a guest operating system after an amount of time specified by the VMM. The VMM sets a timer value before entering a guest.
—The feature aids VMM developers in flexibility and Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees.
Desktop 4th Generation Intel® Core™ Processor Family, Desktop Intel® Pentium® Processor Family, and Desktop Intel® Celeron® Processor Family
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