FSMLabs introduced light-weight virtualization more than a decade ago.
Virtualization is one of the oldest technologies in computer science - in fact it predates the existence of actual computers. For many years, practical virtualization was limited to huge mainframes where the vast overhead of the technology was at least bearable. The “RTLinux method” that FSMLabs introduced in the mid 1990s relied on an observation that we only needed to virtualize a small part of the hardware in order to allow a real-time kernel to operate efficiently on top of a “platform”. We created a fast, resource frugal type of virtualization as an alternative to the traditional lumbering giants. For the embedded world, this meant the rich software environment and low cost commodity hardware of the PC and server market could be used to control machinery. For the enterprise market, the same observation and technology is just as important: because enterprise applications are increasingly cycle intensive and power conscious. As the requirement for real-time become more obvious in todays high speed transaction business environment, the value of lightweight virtualization only increases.