Intel® System Studio and many of its components can be used for software development, analysis and debug targeting workloads running inside virtualized guest OSs. In many ways developing for a virtualized environment is only an extension of the concept of cross-development.
For compilers and libraries this implies that they can be used either in cross-build fashion or as a native compiler installed as part of your guest OS. Here as usual the expectation is that a GNU toolchain is present that the Intel® C++ Compiler can integrate with.
The Intel-enhanced GDB* application debugger can be used to debug locally inside a virtual machine or remotely using TCP-IP forwarding into the guest OS with a gdbserver debug agent running locally.
System-Visible Event Nexus (SVEN) instrumentation also has no strong dependency on hardware and thus can be used inside a Guest OS. The only dependency is access to a reliable OS timer signal.
The use of the Intel® VTune™ Amplifier for Systems poses the most complex challenge with some features available with virtualization and some having limitations or not being available. Therefore a considerable part of this whitepaper will focus on the use of the VTune™ Amplifier for Systems.
Two general limitations currently apply to Intel® System Studio and its use in a virtual environment. It does not actively support analysis and debug of workloads that are distributed across multiple guest OSs. Our Intel® System Debugger solution currently also does not support JTAG assisted debug of a guest OS running inside a virtual machine.
The attached whitepaper covers the limitations and capabilities in some detail.