<div class='slidealt'>Virtualization research projects <a title='ARM multicore kvm open source' href='/en/research'>in cloud and embedded systems</a></div> <div class='slidealt'>Virtualization solutions for heterogeneous <a title='ARMv7-ARMv8 virtualization open source solutions' href='/en/solutions'>ARM multicore systems</a></div> <div class='slidealt'>Benefit from custom <a title='kvm on arm services full virtualization' href='/en/services'>virtualization services</a></div> <div class='slidealt'>Experience kvm <a title='virtualization for embedded heterogeneous arm core platforms' href='/en/products'>virtualization extensions</a></div> <div class='slidealt'>KVM on ARMv7 and ARMv8 <a title='kvm-on-arm open source smu extensions' href='/en/solutions/guides/vfio-on-arm/'>IOMMU full virtualization</a></div>

KVM-on-ARM virtualization benefits from open source

the benefits of kvm on arm virtualization in embedded systems

KVM-on-ARM is an Open Source virtualization solution which takes advantage of Hardware-Assisted Virtualization (HAV) technology to provide an efficient and cost-effective solution for embedded systems. Among others, here are some notable benefits of KVM virtualization:

  • Near Native Performance: KVM uses hardware support to manage processor states and memory virtualization, resulting in near native performance which makes it a scalable solution. Innovative ideas such as virtualization of hardware codecs and off-loading of multimedia libraries, such as OpenGL and OpenMAX, to the host system can be supported with KVM on ARM, for creating light-weight and performing virtual machines within mobile platforms.
  • Full Virtualization: KVM is a full virtualization technology as opposed to para-virtualization techniques thus no modifications are needed in the guest operating systems. This means that KVM can support proprietary operating systems such as Linux, Windows without requiring any changes to them. Memory virtualization capabilities of KVM expose the full address space to its guests, thus all kinds of memory access mechanisms are supported from software.
  • Security and Failure Isolation: KVM virtualization solution provides the means for failure isolation thus fulfilling the security needs of mobile, automotive, server and cloud computing environments. These security features can be further fortified by using Security Enhanced Linux (SELinux) and sVirt library, to create highly secure virtualization environments.
  • Open Source and Support for New Platforms: KVM is an open source solution providing all the benefits of open source software, while being actively maintained by a large development community. This includes problem fixes, new features and support for the new generation architectures, for example 64-bit ARMv8 processors. ARMv8 architecture targets the server, automotive and high-end mobile platforms thus KVM-on-ARMv8 becomes a key virtualization technology for many market segments.

Zero costs of ownership and no vendor lock-in effect

The proven excellent performance level of KVM doesn't prevent it to remain a low cost solution, for which Virtual Open Systems is the right partner to assist in any custom implementation for several market segments such as automotive, consumer, networking, servers, mobile:

  • No cost of ownership, no royalty fees, no vendor lock-in effect: As the virtualization on ARM embedded technology applies to personal, professional and mixed use cases with BYOD/Enterprise market segments fully concerned, the open source KVM is really attractive also in terms of resetting costs of ownership and royalty fees. In addition any vendor lock-in effect can be avoided with the usage of KVM on ARM. frees the usage from any vendor lock-in side effect.
  • Reduced Cost of Deployment and Maintenance: KVM is supported out of the box and is the default hypervisor in linux. It also reduces the deployment effort on newer platforms, as it makes heavy code re-use from the linux kernel such as Process Scheduling, Memory Management, Synchronization facilities etc. New features and improvements to the linux kernel are automatically reflected in KVM thus making it an even more interesting solution.