AMD today for the first time publicly disclosed key elements of its “Pacifica” virtualization technology, at the AMD Reviewer’s Day in Austin, Texas. “Pacifica” will help extend AMD's technology leadership when it brings to market technology that is designed to enhance 64-bit server virtualization technologies for x86-based servers, desktops and mobile computers.
“Pacifica” will extend AMD64 technology with Direct Connect Architecture to enhance the virtualization experience by introducing a new model and features into the processor and memory controller. Designed to enhance and extend traditional software-only based virtualization approaches, these new features will help reduce complexity and increase security of new virtualization solutions, while protecting IT investments through backward compatibility with existing virtualization software.
By enabling a platform to efficiently run multiple operating systems and applications in independent partitions, essentially allowing one compute system to function as multiple “virtual” systems, “Pacifica” is designed to provide foundation technologies to deliver IT resource utilization advantages through server consolidation, legacy migration and increased security. Information about “Pacifica” is immediately available at www.amd.com/enterprise.
Today’s disclosure about “Pacifica” precedes the general availability of the “Pacifica” specification, planned for April, 2005. “Pacifica,” which will provide users with hardware support to better enhance the flexibility and performance of current solutions, is planned to be available in both client and server processors from AMD in the first half of 2006. Feature enhancements are also planned for future single-core and dual-core AMD64 processors to further leverage the performance of 64-bit virtualization software.
AMD presents Pacifica Virtualization Platform
Posted on Wednesday, March 30 2005 @ 16:19 CEST by Thomas De Maesschalck