Virtual translation lookaside buffer

An apparatus comprising:

• a guest translation data structure to translate virtual memory addresses into physical memory addresses, the guest translation data structure being managed by a guest operating system;
• an active translation data structure to contain data derived from content of the guest translation data structure, the active translation data structure being managed by a virtual machine monitor (VMM);
• and
• a translation-lookaside buffer (TLB) to store address translations derived from the active translation data structure, the TLB being managed by a processor.

A computer readable medium that provides instructions, which when executed on a processor, cause said processor to perform operations comprising:

• creating a guest translation data structure to be used by a guest operating system for address translation operations;
• creating an active translation data structure based on the guest translation data structure;
• and
• periodically modifying content of the active translation data structure to conform to content of the guest translation data structure, the content of the active translation data structure being used by a processor to cache address translations in a translation-lookaside buffer (TLB).