IDC Virtualization Forum, New York -- February 7, 2006 --AMD
(NYSE:AMD) today announced the broad availability of its I/O
virtualization technology specification. Demonstrating continued
leadership in evolving the industry-standard x86 processor
architecture, AMD is making this technology available through
royalty-free licenses that are designed to encourage its widespread
adoption by hardware and software developers. By defining a set of
technologies that can be directly built into a computer’s I/O bridges,
AMD’s I/O virtualization technology is designed to extend the benefits
of CPU-assisted virtualization by addressing the performance
bottlenecks and security issues that can be encountered when
virtualizing I/O devices in x86-based servers, desktops, and notebook
computers.
“Continuing our leadership role, AMD’s I/O virtualization technology is
expected to provide performance benefits in commercial servers, but it
also opens the door to new and exciting uses for virtualization in
desktop and notebook PCs, where device virtualization is particularly
challenging,” said Marty Seyer, senior vice president, Commercial
Business and Performance Computing, Microprocessor Solutions Sector,
AMD. “We have embraced the industry’s ecosystem, and are very pleased
to continue our collaborative approach to the development of AMD’s
virtualization technology by sharing this specification publicly and
making it available through licenses across the hardware and software
development community.”
AMD’s collaborative approach to providing the industry with
leading edge technology designed to enable virtualization solutions is
also demonstrated through ongoing and strategic alliances with industry
leaders including Microsoft, VMware and XenSource.
“Virtualization helps customers overcome the physical
boundaries and underused capacity of IT systems, and is a key stepping
stone for customers to increase operational efficiency and become more
dynamic and responsive to business needs,” said Jeff Price, senior
director, Windows Server Division, Microsoft Corp. “Microsoft is
working closely with AMD to help open the way for a new class of
innovation, to make IT systems not only more cost-effective, but also
more secure, manageable, and interoperable.”
"VMware's virtual infrastructure software has revolutionized
the way customers run their data centers," said Raghu Raghuram, vice
president, platforms products at VMware. "An important enabler of this
is our collaboration with key partners to help ensure that the mix of
hardware and software innovation delivers the highest performance, most
robust virtualization possible. We look forward to working with AMD on
I/O virtualization to further advance the state-of-the-art in virtual
infrastructure and to help ensure that virtualization on AMD64
technology-based systems is optimized to serve the needs of enterprise
customers."
“Assisted virtualization for I/O devices is the next logical
step in hardware virtualization,” said Simon Crosby, chief technology
officer, XenSource, Inc. “The open availability of AMD’s I/O
virtualization technology underscores that AMD is aligned with
XenSource in their efforts to lead the industry forward by developing
open and open-source x86-based virtualization technologies.”
AMD’s CPU virtualization technology (formerly referred to by the code
name “Pacifica”) delivers CPU efficiencies to traditional software
only-based virtualization approaches. AMD I/O virtualization technology
complements and extends these efficiencies by providing mechanisms to
support virtualization software in managing, partitioning, and securing
I/O devices, which is anticipated to result in improved performance and
less implementation complexity in providing I/O in virtual
environments.
AMD’s I/O virtualization technology is expected to be
supported by all AMD processors in mid-2006, and is also anticipated to
be implemented in chipsets and core logic designed for AMD64-based
platforms in 2006. The AMD I/O virtualization technology specification
download, together with technology overviews and guidance to software
developers who are designing virtualization solutions for 64-bit
technology, can be found at http://developer.amd.com.
Source: AMD Press Release
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