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2. Virtualization

Para-virtualized drivers

Para-virtualized drivers (the virtio drivers) increase the performance for a virtual machine's block and network devices.

The virtio balloon driver allows guests to express to the hypervisor how much memory they require. The balloon driver allows the host to efficiently allocate memory to the guest and allow free memory to be allocated to other guests and processes. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6, the virtio balloon driver can collect and report memory statistics.
libvirt

Libvirt is a hypervisor-independent virtualization API that is able to interact with the virtualization capabilities of a range of operating systems. libvirt provides a common, generic and stable layer to securely manage virtualized guests on a host.

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6, libvirt has been updated to version 0.8.2, enabling sVirt. sVirt is a technology included in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 that integrates SELinux and virtualization. sVirt improves security and hardens the system against bugs in the hypervisor that might be used as an attack vector for the host or to another virtualized guest.
Global synchronization point for pvclock

pvclock enables a guest to read the clock time of the host. In Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6, a global synchronization point is added to pvclock, providing a more stable time source for guests.

virtio-serial

The virtio-serial driver has been added, enabling vmchannel capabilities on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6 guests operating on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6 hosts. VMchannel is a transport mechanism used for communication between the host userspace and guest userspace.

Xen profiling addition for Intel Core i7 and Atom Processors

The Xen xenoprof command in Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.6 includes added definitions to recognize Core i7 and Atom processors.

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