Microsoft technology licensing, llc (20240126580). TRANSPARENTLY PROVIDING VIRTUALIZATION FEATURES TO UNENLIGHTENED GUEST OPERATING SYSTEMS simplified abstract

TRANSPARENTLY PROVIDING VIRTUALIZATION FEATURES TO UNENLIGHTENED GUEST OPERATING SYSTEMS

Organization Name

microsoft technology licensing, llc

Inventor(s)

Jin Lin of Seattle WA (US)

David Alan Hepkin of Redmond WA (US)

Michael Bishop Ebersol of Woodinville WA (US)

Matthew David Kurjanowicz of Wenatchee WA (US)

Aditya Bhandari of Seattle WA (US)

Attilio Mainetti of Bellevue WA (US)

Amy Anthony Parish of Seattle WA (US)

TRANSPARENTLY PROVIDING VIRTUALIZATION FEATURES TO UNENLIGHTENED GUEST OPERATING SYSTEMS - A simplified explanation of the abstract

This abstract first appeared for US patent application 20240126580 titled 'TRANSPARENTLY PROVIDING VIRTUALIZATION FEATURES TO UNENLIGHTENED GUEST OPERATING SYSTEMS

Simplified Explanation

The patent application describes a system for transparently providing virtualization features to an unenlightened guest operating system. The system divides a guest partition into two privilege contexts, with a compatibility component executing in the first context and the guest OS in the second context. The compatibility component intercepts I/O operations associated with the guest OS and processes them using virtualization features unsupported by the guest OS.

• The system divides a guest partition into a first guest privilege context and a second guest privilege context.
• A compatibility component intercepts I/O operations associated with the guest OS and processes them using virtualization features.
• Examples of virtualization features include accelerated access to hardware devices and virtual machine guest confidentiality.

Potential Applications

This technology could be applied in cloud computing environments, data centers, and virtualization platforms to enhance the performance and security of guest operating systems.

Problems Solved

1. Lack of support for virtualization features in unenlightened guest operating systems. 2. Limited access to hardware devices and potential security vulnerabilities in guest OS environments.

Benefits

1. Improved performance and efficiency in virtualized environments. 2. Enhanced security and confidentiality for guest operating systems. 3. Compatibility with a wide range of guest OS without requiring modifications.

Potential Commercial Applications

"Enhancing Virtualization Features for Guest Operating Systems in Cloud Computing Environments"

Possible Prior Art

One possible prior art could be the use of hypervisors to provide virtualization features to guest operating systems. Another could be the use of compatibility layers to enable unsupported features in operating systems.

Unanswered Questions

How does the system handle potential conflicts between the compatibility component and the guest OS during I/O operations?

The article does not provide details on how the system resolves conflicts that may arise between the compatibility component and the guest OS when processing I/O operations.

What impact does the use of virtualization features have on the overall performance of the guest operating system?

The article does not discuss the potential performance implications of using virtualization features on the guest operating system.

Original Abstract Submitted

transparently providing a virtualization feature to an unenlightened guest operating system (os). a guest partition, corresponding to a virtual machine, is divided into a first guest privilege context and a second guest privilege context. a compatibility component executes within the first guest privilege context, while a guest os executes within the second guest privilege context. the compatibility component is configured to intercept input/output (i/o) operations associated with the guest operating os. based on the compatibility component intercepting an i/o operation associated with the guest os, the compatibility component processes the i/o operation using a virtualization feature that is unsupported by the guest os. examples of the virtualization feature include accelerated access to a hardware device and virtual machine guest confidentiality.