Virtualization has a central role on modern systems, nowadays being a key aspect of how systems are developed, executed, and managed in environments ranging from mobile computing devices to large-scale data centers. Virtualization techniques are applied at many interfaces, from hardware, to OS system calls, to high-level language run times, to cloud management stacks. While these approaches differ dramatically in implementation, they target similar benefits and often must tackle related challenges.

The 2012 ACM SIGPLAN/SIGOPS International Conference on Virtual Execution Environments brings together researchers across the many applications of virtualization in today's systems. We invite original papers on topics relating to virtualization – especially those that will have broad appeal across these approaches.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

Design and implementation of the virtualization layer;
The use of virtualization to provide novel functionality, such as high availability, enhanced security and dependability;
Challenges in applying virtualization in new environments, such as unusual architectures, real-time constraints, and very large systems;
Novel virtualization techniques to support cloud computing;
Development and debugging for virtual environments, such as record/replay debugging and omniscience;
I/O concerns specific to virtualization;
Experience reports from deployments of virtualized environments; and
Impact of virtualization on performance models.