Intel and AMD are adding functionality to their microprocessors to improve performance of virtualized environments.

Paravirtualized (PVM) --A software interface similar but not identical to the underlying hardware is presented to the guest operating system. Paravirtualization provides hooks for guest instructions so that complicated taskscan be performed by the host instead of the virtual machine, where performance is worse. Paravirtualization requires that the guest kernel is ported to be made aware of the virtual environment.