Quad-Core AMD Opteron? processors with Direct Connect Architecture and AMD Virtualization? (AMD-V?) technology power high performing, flexible, and secure server virtualization solutions available today. Rapid Virtualization Indexing, an enhancement to AMD-V technology in Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors, is designed to dramatically increase the performance of virtualized applications while enabling faster switching between virtual machines (VMs), so you can host more VMs per server and maximize the benefits of virtualization. AMD's Direct Connect Architecture includes an on-die memory controller for optimum memory management ? a key performance enabler ? while HyperTransport? technology increases platform scalability and throughput.

Direct Connect Architecture: Host More Virtual Machines Per Server
AMD?s Direct Connect Architecture provides direct CPU-to-memory, CPU-to-I/O, and CPU-to-CPU connections to streamline server virtualization. AMD quad-core processors with 64-bit computing provide more memory bandwidth and more CPU resources for virtualization than any comparable server processor.

The Integrated Memory Controller is designed to improve performance on memory-intensive virtualization environments through high bandwidth, low latency, and scalable access to memory.

HyperTransport technology optimizes the movement of data and the sharing of resources among VMs for greater system scalability.

Rapid Virtualization Indexing: Better Performance In Virtualized Environments
Rapid Virtualization Indexing allows virtual machines to more directly manage memory to improve performance on many virtualized applications. Utilizing on-die silicon resources rather than software, Rapid Virtualization Indexing can greatly reduce Hypervisor cycles and the associated performance penalty that is commonly associated with virtualization.

Rapid Virtualization Indexing is also designed to decrease the ?world-switch time? ? time spent switching from one virtual machine to another ? by 25% for greater application responsiveness.

Tagged Translation Look-Aside Buffer: Increased Responsiveness In Virtualized Environments
Unique to AMD Opteron processors, the Tagged Translation Look-aside Buffer (TLB) allows for faster switching times between virtual machines by maintaining a mapping to the VMs individual memory spaces. Competing solutions can?t distinguish one VM's memory space from another?s, resulting in additional memory management overhead and reduced responsiveness when switching between virtual machines.

Device Exclusion Vector: For More Efficient Security
The Device Exclusion Vector (DEV) ? another AMD exclusive ? acts like a traffic cop, controlling access to virtual machine memory based on permission, isolating virtual machines for secure operation.

The DEV performs these security checks in hardware, rather than software, for greater efficiency by creating Protection Domains that deny memory access for unauthorized requests from external devices, such as hard disks, network controllers, etc.

Learn more about Third-Generation AMD Opteron? processors.

Features and Benefits:

• AMD64 Technology
• Direct Connect Architecture
• Quad-Core Upgradeability
• Enhanced Performance-per-Watt

• Benchmarks
• Competitive Comparisons

• Product Brief
• Key Architectural Features