From the website:
Decisive breakthrough from IBM researchers in Haifa introduces efficient nested virtualization for x86 hypervisors
What is nested virtualization and who needs it? Classical virtualization takes a physical computer and turns it into multiple logical, or virtual, computers. Each virtual machine can then interact independently, run its own operating environment, and basically behave like a separate physical resource. Hypervisor software is the secret sauce that makes virtualization possible by sitting in between the hardware and the operating system. It manages how the operating system and applications access the hardware.
IBM researchers found an efficient way to take one x86 hypervisor and run other hypervisors on top of it. For virtualization, this means that a virtual machine can be ‘turned into’ many machines, each with the potential to have its own unique environment, configuration, operating system, or security measures—which can in turn each be divided into more logical computers, and so on. With this breakthrough, x86 processors can now run multiple ‘hypervisors’ stacked, in parallel, and of different types.
This nested virtualization using one hypervisor on top of another is reminiscent of a tale popularized by Stephen Hawking. A little old lady argued with a lecturing scientist and insisted that the world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise. When the scientist asked what the tortoise is standing on, the woman answered sharply “But it’s turtles all the way down!” Inspired by this vision, the researchers named their solution the Turtles Project: Design and Implementation of Nested Virtualization
This awesome advance has been incorporated into the latest Linux release.
This is what I like about IBM, fundamental advances in computer science that can be turned into services for users.
One obvious use of this advance would be to segregate merging models in separate virtual machines. I am sure there are others.