Hypervisors are becoming commonplace in the embedded world, especially in high-end multi-core systems. If you’d asked me about virtualisation or hypervisors 2 years ago, like most people I didn’t know much about them. A hypervisor, that’s a super-supervisor, right? Virtualisation, you mean Virtual Machines, right? Running linux on windows using VMware, right? Not any more!
Here at Feabhas we’ve noticed a lot of our clients and contacts are starting to lookat designs using hypervisors in embedded systems for a number of reasons. The main drivers areconnected devices being used in the Internet of Things, multi-core split RTOS/Linux systems offering real-time Linux solutions, and the need for security and trusted execution environments, where critical processes are isolated from the outside world.
There is a lot of potential for using hypervisors on projects that designers haven’t considered using them in. Hypervisors can be used on bare metal systems or run on operating systems, they offer good task protection and isolation of hardware and memory resources. If you haven’t considered using a hypervisor on your system, or if you are considering using one and are just getting started, our Introduction to Hypervisors webinar is worth tuning in to.