Processor virtualization mechanism via an enhanced restoration of hard architected states

摘要

A method and system are disclosed for pre-loading a hard architected state of a next process from a pool of idle processes awaiting execution. When an executing process is interrupted on the processor, a hard architected state, which has been pre-stored in the processor, of a next process is loaded into architected storage locations in the processor. The next process to be executed, and thus its corresponding hard architected state that is pre-stored in the processor, are determined based on priorities assigned to the waiting processes.