Mobile virtualization
title: "Mobile virtualization" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["mobile-software", "virtualization"] topic_path: "technology/operating-systems" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_virtualization" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
Mobile virtualization is hardware virtualization on a mobile phone or connected wireless device. It enables multiple operating systems or virtual machines to run simultaneously on a mobile phone or connected wireless device. It uses a hypervisor to create secure separation between the underlying hardware and the software that runs on top of it; this can be considered a form of an embedded hypervisor, or a close analogue. Virtualization technology has been used widely for many years in other fields such as data servers (storage virtualization) and personal computers (desktop virtualization).
Applications
Low cost platform
In 2008, the mobile industry became interested in using the benefits of virtualization technology for cell phones and other devices like tablets, netbooks and machine-to-machine (M2M) modules.{{Citation | title = Virtualization Goes Mobile | url = http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-04-22/virtualization-goes-mobilebusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120705180426/http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-04-22/virtualization-goes-mobilebusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice | url-status = dead | archive-date = July 5, 2012 | journal = Bloomberg BusinessWeek |date=April 22, 2008 | accessdate = 2008-04-22 | title = Low cost Android: crossing the $100 barrier | url = http://www.visionmobile.com/blog/2010/02/low-cost-android-crossing-the-100-barrier/ | journal = VisionMobile Blog |date=February 7, 2010 | accessdate = 2010-02-07 | title = VirtualLogix VLX Virtualization Software Selected by ST-Ericsson for Low-Cost Android-Ready Smartphone Platform | url = http://fixed-mobile-convergence.tmcnet.com/topics/mobile-communications/articles/76086-virtuallogix-vlx-virtualization-software-selected-st-ericsson-low.htm | journal = TMCnet |date=February 18, 2010 | accessdate = 2010-02-18
Enterprise
Another use case for mobile virtualization is in the enterprise market. Today, many consumers carry two mobile phones: one for business use and another for personal use. With mobile virtualization, mobile phones can support multiple domains/operating systems on the same hardware, so that the enterprise IT department can securely manage one domain (in a virtual machine), and the mobile operator can separately manage the other domain (in a virtual machine).{{Citation | title = VMware foresees mobile virtualization in 2010 | url = http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-10246338-92.html | journal = CNet News |date=May 21, 2009 | accessdate = 2009-05-21
In September 2010, ARM announced{{Citation | title = ARM Unveils Cortex-A15 MPCore Processor to Dramatically Accelerate Capabilities of Mobile, Consumer and Infrastructure Applications | url = http://www.arm.com/about/newsroom/arm-unveils-cortex-a15-mpcore-processor-to-dramatically-accelerate-capabilities.php | journal = ARM News Release |date= September 8, 2010 | accessdate = 2010-09-08
Platforms
Every mobile platform does virtualization differently.
Android
Main article: OS virtualization and emulation on Android
In Android there are many ways to do virtualization, however due to limitations and operating system security restrictions some types of virtualization software will not be able to do all the tasks or run all types of applications.
References
References
- "Cortex-A15 Processor". [[ARM Holdings]].
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