Virtual Machines

Virtual Machines: Versatile Platforms for Systems and Processes
By Jim Smith, Ravi Nair

Virtual Machine technology applies the concept of virtualization to an
entire machine, circumventing real machine compatibility constraints
and hardware resource constraints to enable a higher degree of
software portability and flexibility. Virtual machines are rapidly
becoming an essential element in computer system design. They provide
system security, flexibility, cross-platform compatibility,
reliability, and resource efficiency. Designed to solve problems in
combining and using major computer system components, virtual machine
technologies play a key role in many disciplines, including operating
systems, programming languages, and computer architecture. For
example, at the process level, virtualizing technologies support
dynamic program translation and platform-independent network
computing. At the system level, they support multiple operating system
environments on the same hardware platform and in servers.

Historically, individual virtual machine techniques have been
developed within the specific disciplines that employ them (in some
cases they arent even referred to as virtual machines), making it
difficult to see their common underlying relationships in a cohesive
way. In this text, Smith and Nair take a new approach by examining
virtual machines as a unified discipline. Pulling together
cross-cutting technologies allows virtual machine implementations to
be studied and engineered in a well-structured manner. Topics include
instruction set emulation, dynamic program translation and
optimization, high level virtual machines (including Java and CLI),
and system virtual machines for both single-user systems and servers.

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