> I apologize for not following the whole thread here, but in case it has not > been mentioned, the following should be pointed out to further > differentiate z from x as far as virtualization goes: The zSeries > architecture and hardware design contains facilities not found in the Inel > machine. These facitlies (mainly SIE and EMIF virtual memory related > architectures go a long way in reducing the overhead fo virutalization > which must be done entirely in software on Intel. Furthermore the small > caches and relatively high aggregate memory latency of the intel machines > means that they suffer more from the increase in context switching that > occurs when virtualization is done. So yes they can do it, but not nearly > as well. >
I've not explored the possibility, but (at least some) IA32 CPUs support microcode modifications. These modifications are volatile - lost when the power's cycled. Possibly this would allow addition of jellyware support for something akin to SIE etc. -- Cheers John Summerfield Microsoft's most solid OS: http://www.geocities.com/rcwoolley/ Note: mail delivered to me is deemed to be intended for me, for my disposition.
