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KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware. It consists of a loadable kernel module (named kvm.ko) and a userspace component, both open source software. The kernel component of KVM is included in mainline Linux, and will appear in Linux 2.6.20.
KVM allows one to run virtual machines using unmodified disk images containing operating systems. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc.
Current development
KVM uses a modified QEMU program as a front-end. Work is being made to utilize more of the Virtualization Technology available in the latest Intel and AMD CPUs. It has been benchmarked against Xen and, on some workloads, has already proved to be a faster solution. (http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=623&num=4)
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