Virtual Machine Manager provides a graphical interface to guide you through the steps to create virtual machines. It can also be run in text mode by entering virt-install at a command prompt in the host environment.

Intel* and AMD* provide virtualization hardware-assisted technology. This reduces the frequency of VM IN/OUT (fewer VM traps), because software is a major source of overhead, and increases the efficiency (the execution is done by the hardware). Moreover, this reduces the memory footprint, provides better resource control, and allows secure assignment of specific I/O devices.

The desktop or command line environment that allows interaction with the host computer's environment. It provides a command line environment and can also include a graphical desktop, such as GNOME or IceWM. The host environment runs as a special type of virtual machine that has privileges to control and manage other virtual machines.

The software that coordinates the low-level interaction between virtual machines and the underlying physical computer hardware.

The video output device that drives a video display from a memory buffer containing a complete frame of data for virtual machine displays running in paravirtual mode.

Virtualization Host Server

The physical computer running a SUSE virtualization platform software. The virtualization environment consists of the hypervisor, the host environment, virtual machines and associated tools, commands and configuration files. Other commonly used terms include host, Host Computer, Host Machine (HM), Virtual Server (VS), Virtual Machine Host (VMH), and VM Host Server (VHS).

VirtFS is a new paravirtualized file system interface designed for improving pass-through technologies in the KVM environment. It is based on the VirtIO framework.

A virtualized PC environment (VM) capable of hosting a guest operating system and associated applications. Could be also called a VM Guest.

A software program that provides a graphical user interface for creating and managing virtual machines.

A guest operating system or application running on a virtual machine.

Virtual CPU capping allows you to set vCPU capacity to 1–100 percent of the physical CPU capacity.

CPU hotplugging is used to describe the functions of replacing/adding/removing a CPU without shutting down the system.

Virtual CPU over-commitment is the ability to assign more virtual CPUs to VMs than the actual number of physical CPUs present in the physical system. This procedure does not increase the overall performance of the system, but may be useful for testing purposes.

Processor affinity, or CPU pinning enables the binding and unbinding of a process or a thread to a central processing unit (CPU) or a range of CPUs.

A type of network connection that lets a virtual machine be identified on an external network as a unique identity that is separate from and unrelated to its host computer.

A type of network bridge that has no physical network device or virtual network device provided by the host. This lets virtual machines communicate with other virtual machines on the same host but not with the host or on an external network.

The network outside a host's internal network environment.

A type of network configuration that restricts virtual machines to their host environment.

A type of network bridge that has a virtual network device but no physical network device provided by the host. This lets virtual machines communicate with the host and other virtual machines on the host. Virtual machines can communicate on an external network through the host.

A type of network connection that lets a virtual machine use the IP address and MAC address of the host.

A type of network bridge that has a physical network device but no virtual network device provided by the host. This lets virtual machines communicate on an external network but not with the host. This lets you separate virtual machine network communications from the host environment.

A type of network bridge that has both a physical network device and a virtual network device provided by the host.

The Advanced Host Controller Interface (AHCI) is a technical standard defined by Intel* that specifies the operation of Serial ATA (SATA) host bus adapters in a non-implementation-specific manner.

Data storage devices, such as CD-ROM drives or disk drives, that move data in the form of blocks. Partitions and volumes are also considered block devices.

A virtual disk based on a file, also called a disk image file.

A method of accessing data on a disk at the individual byte level instead of through its file system.

A disk image file that does not reserve its entire amount of disk space but expands as data is written to it.

The drive designation given to the first virtual disk on a paravirtual machine.