Systems and methods for implementing an operating system in a virtual machine environment

摘要

The present invention includes systems for and methods of implementing an operating system that is capable of ascertaining whether it is operating in a virtual machine environment and is further capable of modifying its behavior to operate more efficiently in a virtual machine environment. Embodiments of the present invention arc directed to a system and method for providing operating systems that are aware that they are operating in a virtual machine environment and, as a result of this realization, are able to reduce some of the performance overhead associated with a virtual machine environment. The invention relaxes the illusion that a guest operating system is operating on dedicated hardware and describes ways for the guest operating system to operate more efficiently now that this illusion has been relaxed.