7 System Execution Virtualization (Hypervisor)

Hello students,

In todays lecture we dive inside system level emulation. We look at two key system mechanics, the machine and the hypervisor.

When we think of system, it refers to the machine hardware (processor, memory, peripheral devices) which understand only machine instructions.

Our operating system executes with the help of these hardware specific machine instructions.

Machine Reference Model, ISA

We begin the lecture by understanding the machine reference model to understand what makes any system work.

ISA or Instruction Set Architecture (consisting of machine instructions) is at the core that ultimately manages, controls, instructs this hardware. All our system programs (including operating system) uses ISA to manage, control, instruct the hardware

Some ISA instructions can delete, destroy, obstruct your system and hence such sensitive privileged ISA instruction has to be securely managed using ring-based ISA Security model.

Hypervisor (Virtual Machine Manager)

We finally end our lecture by introducing the Hypervisor, a program that creates and manages emulated systems such as virtual machines.

When we did the AWS course, we created EC2 instance, which is also an emulated system (or virtual machine)

If you have used Oracle Virtual Box, it is a Hypervisor that can create virtual machines. All Hypervisors follow the Hardware Virtualization Reference Model.

We look into different types of Hypervisors, one that needs an operating system (Type 2), and one that does not (Type 1).

FOSS in a Type 1 VMM whereas Oracle Virtual Box is a Type 2 VMM.

We dig deep to know how Hypervisor (VMM) works. How can we know which is a good VMM? How can we know if the ISA architecture of the computer is good?




Thank you

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