Are Hypervisors Microkernels Done Right?

Well, Are They?

With paravirtualization, the hypervisor in effect acts like a microkernel, and the guest OSs are like modules running on top of it.
They make hypercalls into the hypervisor, instead of the hypervisor trying to emulate difficult hardware instructions.
Of course, this means the guest OS knows it is a guest and a special version of it must be run.

True virtualization and paravirtualization

Issues with Paravirtualization

VMI Linux

Quiz

A hypercall is

a replacement for a sensitive instruction
a call that jumps far in memory
a call that won't settle down
a new element in HTML5

Hypercalls are the hypervisor equivalent of

system calls
class methods
recursive calls
long distance calls

A disadvantage of paravirtualization is

the need to emulate elaborate hardware instructions
the fact that Intel processors do not support it
the fact that we need a special version of the guest OS
all of the above

Answers

1. a; 2. a; 3. c;