On the Simulation of Processors Enhanced for Security in Virtualization

Computer system simulators model the hardware and reduce the time required for the design of the hardware, by exploring the design space and thereby eliminating the time-consuming process of testing each possibility by actually building the hardware. Simulators used in Computer Architecture typically model processors, memories and disks. With the regaining of the importance of virtualization, there is a need for a simulator for virtualization-enhanced processors, especially, with security related enhancements. But adapting existing simulators to model virtualization-enabled processors is a deceptively difficult task, wrought with complications like multiple access levels. In our research, we aim to identify methods for effectively simulating virtualization-enabled processors. This paper reports the results of a preliminary simulation of Architectural Support for Memory Isolation (ASMI), a memory architecture model that provides memory isolation, using ModelSim and highlights the need for a hardware-based simulator for processors enhanced for security in virtualization.