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Hardware virtualization refers to the creation of a virtual machine that acts like a real computer with an operating system. Software executed on these virtual machines is separated from the underlying hardware resources.
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In hardware virtualization, the host machine is the machine that is used by the virtualization and the guest machine is the virtual machine.
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The software or firmware that creates a virtual machine on the host hardware is called a hypervisor or virtual machine monitor.
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Different types of hardware virtualization include:
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Full virtualization - almost complete simulation of the actual hardware to allow software environments, including a guest operating system and its apps, to run unmodified.
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Paravirtualization - the guest apps are executed in their own isolated domains, as if they are running on a separate system, but a hardware environment is not simulated. Guest programs need to be specifically modified to run in this environment.
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Hardware-assisted virtualization - is a way of improving overall efficiency of virtualization. It involves CPUs that provide support for virtualization in hardware, and other hardware components that help improve the performance of a guest environment.
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A system's memory map may look like this:
| Address Range(hexadecimal) | Size | Device |
|---|---|---|
| 0000–7FFF | 32 KiB | RAM |
| 8000–80FF | 256 bytes | General-purpose I/O |
| 9000–90FF | 256 bytes | Sound controller |
| A000–A7FF | 2 KiB | Video controller/ |
| text-mapped display RAM | ||
| C000–FFFF | 16 KiB | ROM |