Hypervisor Cache Locking for VM Latency Reduction

The patent applies preliminary action by pre-loading critical hypervisor data and code into the cache before VM exit or entry operations occur. The system identifies frequently accessed hypervisor components and ensures they are already resident in cache memory, eliminating the need to fetch them from main memory during time-critical VM transitions. This proactive caching strategy prevents jitter and latency by ensuring data is available immediately when needed.

The patent applies segmentation by dividing the cache into distinct regions or partitions, with specific cache lines or sets reserved exclusively for hypervisor code and data. This segmentation ensures that hypervisor components maintain a guaranteed presence in cache regardless of other VMs' memory access patterns. The cache is organized such that critical hypervisor segments are protected from eviction, providing timing predictability while still allowing other cache regions to be shared for workload consolidation.

The patent applies local quality by providing different cache access guarantees to different operating system types. Real-time operating systems receive guaranteed cache presence for their critical data and code through reserved cache regions, ensuring deterministic access times. General-purpose operating systems operate with standard cache management policies. This differentiated approach allows both real-time performance requirements and high system utilization to coexist on the same multi-core processor.