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Virtualization Technology

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Virtualization Technology is the name of the mutually incompatible virtualization technologies from Intel and AMD, previously known by their respective codenames "Vanderpool" and "Pacifica". They allow a single machine to run multiple operating systems at once without incurring significant emulation costs.

Availability

Intel calls its hardware assistance for emulation "VT" although it is often referred to by its codename "Vanderpool". It was officially launched at the Intel Developer Forum Spring 2005. It is available on all Pentium 4 6x2, Pentium D 9xx, Xeon 7xxx and Core Duo processors, though in the latter case it is sometimes disabled in the BIOS/EFI.

AMD calls its hardware assistance for emulation "Pacifica". AMD has announced that it will be available by the end of the first half of 2006 and in mobile, desktop, workstation, and server chips by the end of the year ([1]).

Intel is working on a version of "Vanderpool" code named "Silvervale" for Xeon and Itanium server platforms. "Silvervale" differs from "Vanderpool" in terms of mission critical requirements such as hot-plug options as well as ability to change memory modules or even microprocessors on the fly, without shutting down the server.

Virtualization software

The following software is known to conditionally make use of virtualization technology features:

  • Microsoft Virtual PC
  • Microsoft Virtual Server — a future version (Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1, to be released in Q1 2007[2]) will support Intel VT and AMD Pacifica extensions.
  • Parallels Workstation — lightweight hypervisor with Intel VT-x support
  • VMware — on Intel processors, VMware Workstation 5.5 requires Intel VT to execute 64-bit guests.[3]
  • Xen — Xen 3.0 uses Intel VT to execute unmodified guest operating systems.

See also

VT from Intel
Pacifica from AMD
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