In the vIrtical project the Linux Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) port for the the ARM processor architecture has been developed and maintained, specifically for the Cortex-A15 processor which include virtualization functionality. KVM on ARM can run unmodified Linux based guest operating systems for the Cortex-A15 on the Fast Models simulator by ARM, or on development hardware boards implementing the processor, such as: ARM Versatile Express, Samsung Exynos 5250 and TI OMAP5432. Other hardware in the market that features a Cortex-A15 includes the Samsung Chromebook, and high end smart phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S4.
The KVM port supports Multi core guests for on multi core hosts, and allows to run an unlimited number of guest operating systems, the only limit being the amount of available processing resources. KVM on the Cortex-A15 takes advantage of the virtualization extensions present on the processor, the virtualization features in the ARM Generic Interrupt Controller, and ARM architected timers, allowing to run guests with very close to native performance.
The KVM on ARM effort is stable and already available in the upstream Linux kernel since version 3.9 [1], on which future Linux distributions will base their kernels.
SW/HW extensions for heterogenous multicore platforms
