Intel VT-x vs AMD SVM

Virtualization addresses the problem of making more efficient use of available computer resources. This is done by providing an abstraction layer which maps real resources to virtual resources. Virtualization solutions have existed for more than forty years. For example, the IBM VM/370 project from the early sixties used virtualization to expose a virtual System/370 machine to the user. There are a wealth of virtualization technologies for the Linux platform: QEMU, BOCHS, OpenVZ, coLinux, Xen, and a lot more. In this article we will focus on Xen and the Virtualization Extensions found in new processors.

On x86 processors, when running in protected mode, there are four privilege levels. The operating system kernel executes in privilege level 0 (also called "supervisor mode") while applications execute in privilege level 3. Privilege levels 1 and 2 are not used. When the processor detects a privilege level violation, it generates a general-protection violation.

When using virtual machine extensions, there are two classes of software: VMM (Virtual Machine Monitor), also known as "hypervisor", and Guests, which are virtual machines. VMM acts as a host and has a full access to the hardware. Each Guest virtual machine operates independently of the others.

In the Xen project, running on x86 processors, the guest operating systems run in privilege level 1. The guest operating system code has been modified to support virtualization. There is no need to modify applications and they run in privilege level 3 as in the usual case. Naturally, many will prefer a situation where the guest operating system code does not need to be modified. As a result, hardware manufacturers like Intel and AMD have begun to develop processors with built-in virtualization extensions. With these processors, the guest