Can this architecture also address the problem of I/O bottlenecks in virtualized environments?
Margaret Lewis: Well, it does help. Our HyperTransport technology, our interconnect for high bandwidth and low latency, will help. I/O is directly connected to the CPU, giving more balanced throughput. But, there are still issues to be resolved in I/O. Tim Meuting: We’ll be addressing those issues in the future. AMD’s I/O Virtualization Technology (IOMMU) specification, which we’re working on with partners, will help in the performance characteristics of translating virtualizers to the physical addresses and offering solutions for isolations. You can truly protect virtual machines at the hardware level. Will developments in hardware virtualization make paravirtualization unnecessary? Margaret Lewis: I don’t necessarily know that paravirtualization is going to discontinue existence. I think there’s going to be many different ways to achieve virtualization, just like there are different operating systems (OSes). Paravirtualization has an advantage, letting virtualization software not hav
