We've had a number of servers from Dell recently, all of which have had hardware-assisted virtualization disabled in the BIOS.
As far as I know hardware-assisted virtualization is a good thing – so why would Dell disable it? Does it have a performance overhead if the machine isn't acting as a virtual machine host? Are there any security issues?
In case it's relevant to your answers we will primarily be using:
- Host OS: Windows Server 2003 Enterprise R2 (32-bit)
- Guest OS:Windows Server 2003 Enterprise R2 (32-bit)
- VMM: Virtual Server 2005 Enterprise R2 SP1
Best Answer
The reason Dell (and Sony etc.) disable Intel-VT and AMD-V is that they cannot support it. Enabling the feature would mean they would have to provide support on it, which the simply cannot do, due to insufficient knowledge at the supportdesk, mainly.
That is, at least, how Sony formulated it.
I tried prying the reason from Sony support guys and that is the only thing they would give me. I finally was able to patch my BIOS and enable VT myself, though.
As for the rest, stuff like Bluepill are not exactly mainstream. And as far as I know - and I work with virtualization stuff a lot - there is no downside to enabling it. If there is though, I would really like to know about it...