![]() Its purpose is to provide a platform-independent programming environment that abstracts away details of the underlying hardware or operating system and allows a program to execute in the same way on any platform.Ī process VM provides a high-level abstraction – that of a high-level programming language (compared to the low-level ISA abstraction of the system VM). It is created when that process is started and destroyed when it exits. Not to be confused with application virtualization.Ī process VM, sometimes called an application virtual machine, or Managed Runtime Environment (MRE), runs as a normal application inside a host OS and supports a single process. "Application virtual machine" redirects here. Multiple VMs running their own guest operating system are frequently engaged for server consolidation. ![]() Virtual machines have other advantages for operating system development and may include improved debugging access and faster reboots. Another use would be for novel and unproven software still in the developmental stage, so it runs inside a sandbox. A typical use would be to run a real-time operating system simultaneously with a preferred complex operating system, such as Linux or Windows. The use of virtual machines to support separate guest operating systems is popular in regard to embedded systems. The guest operating systems do not need to be compliant with the host hardware, thus making it possible to run different operating systems on the same computer (e.g., Windows, Linux, or prior versions of an operating system) to support future software. This is especially useful for read-only pages, such as those holding code segments, which is the case for multiple virtual machines running the same or similar software, software libraries, web servers, middleware components, etc. It may be possible to share memory pages that have identical contents among multiple virtual machines that run on the same physical machine, what may result in mapping them to the same physical page by a technique termed kernel same-page merging (KSM). Īs technology evolves virtual memory for purposes of virtualization, new systems of memory overcommitment may be applied to manage memory sharing among multiple virtual machines on one computer operating system. This approach had certain advantages, such as adding input/output devices not allowed by the standard system. Unlike virtual memory, a system virtual machine entitled the user to write privileged instructions in their code. IBM's CP/CMS, the first systems to allow full virtualization, implemented time sharing by providing each user with a single-user operating system, the Conversational Monitor System (CMS). In some respects, a system virtual machine can be considered a generalization of the concept of virtual memory that historically preceded it. The desire to run multiple operating systems was the initial motive for virtual machines, so as to allow time-sharing among several single-tasking operating systems. A host can emulate several guests, each of which can emulate different operating systems and hardware platforms. The physical, "real-world" hardware running the VM is generally referred to as the 'host', and the virtual machine emulated on that machine is generally referred to as the 'guest'. See also: Hardware virtualization and comparison of platform virtualization softwareĪ "virtual machine" was originally defined by Popek and Goldberg as "an efficient, isolated duplicate of a real computer machine." Current use includes virtual machines that have no direct correspondence to any real hardware. The terms are not universally interchangeable. Operating-system-level virtualization allows the resources of a computer to be partitioned via the kernel. ![]() Some virtual machine emulators, such as QEMU and video game console emulators, are designed to also emulate (or "virtually imitate") different system architectures thus allowing execution of software applications and operating systems written for another CPU or architecture.
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