Xen Virtualization Architecture - Novell XEN - ADMINISTRATION Manual

• Full virtualization mode lets virtual machines run unmodified operating systems,
such as Windows* Server 2003 and Windows XP, but requires the computer running
as the virtual machine host to support hardware-assisted virtualization technology,
such as AMD* Virtualization or Intel* Virtualization Technology.
Some guest operating systems hosted in full virtualization mode, can be configured
to run SUSE Linux Enterprise Virtual Machine Drivers instead of operating-system-
specific drivers. Running virtual machine drivers improves performance dramati-
cally on guest operating systems, such as Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.
For more information, see
• Paravirtual mode does not require the host computer to support hardware-assisted
virtualization technology, but does require the guest operating system to be modified
for the virtualization environment. Typically, operating systems running in paravir-
tual mode enjoy better performance than those requiring full virtualization mode.
Operating systems currently modified to run in paravirtual mode are referred to as
paravirtualized operating systems and include SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
and NetWare® 6.5 SP7.

1.3 Xen Virtualization Architecture

The following graphic depicts a virtual machine host with four virtual machines. The
Xen hypervisor is shown as running directly on the physical hardware platform. Note,
that the controlling domain is also just a virtual machine, although it has several addi-
tional management tasks compared to all other virtual machines.
Chapter 7, Virtual Machine Drivers (page 71).
Introduction to Xen Virtualization 3