VT

VT

(1) (Virtualization Technology) Hardware virtual machine enhancements from Intel for its x86 and Itanium families of CPUs. Introduced in 2004, the specific names are VT-x for the x86 and VT-i for the Itanium. The VT circuits in the CPU eliminate the need to paravirtualize (modify) the guest operating system to achieve maximum performance.

VT enables the virtual machine monitor (VMM) to run at the most privileged level, and it accelerates transitions between the VMM and guest OS. It traps the calls to the hardware from the guest operating system, saves the CPU state and restores it after the VMM handles the event.

VT for Directed I/O (VT-d)
Introduced in 2008, VT for Directed I/O (VT-d) enables direct memory access (DMA) transfers between devices and guest OS memory without using the VMM as an interim stage. This allows network and display adapters to be assigned to specific virtual machines for increased performance. For example, a second display adapter can be assigned to a VM running a CAD application, which must address the hardware directly, or a second network adapter can be assigned to a VM running a high-priority network application. See virtual machine and hardware virtualization.

(2) See Video Toaster.

(3) (Virtual Tributary) In SONET, a sub STS-1 rate, which is below 52 Mbps. A VT allows SONET to multiplex lower-capacity channels down to 64 Kbps, an important characteristic because SONET is used both as a carrier infrastructure and a customer-premises based service. A VT can operate at four speeds: 1.728 Mbps, 2.304 Mbps, 3.456 Mbps and 6.912 Mbps. A mixture of different capacity VTs can be combined into a VT Group and carried in a single STS-1. See OC.

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(character)

VT - Vertical Tab, the mnemonic for ASCII 11.