Patent ID: 8739159

Claim:
A method, in a data processing system, for partitioning a shared cache in virtualized environments, the method comprising: assigning a virtual identifier to a virtual machine; creating an entry for the virtual machine in a partition table, wherein the entry comprises a vertical partition control and a horizontal partition control; receiving a cache access request from the virtual machine; responsive to the cache access request resulting in a cache miss, overwriting one or more victim cache lines in the shared cache based on the vertical partition control and the horizontal partition control in the entry in the partition table corresponding to the virtual machine, wherein the vertical partition control represents one or more ways of the shared cache array assigned to the virtual machine and the horizontal partition control represents one or more rows of the shared cache array assigned to the virtual machine, wherein a virtual machine monitor creates the entry in the partition table to effect allocation of the one or more ways and the one or more rows of the shared cache to the virtual machine; and wherein the vertical partition control comprises a bitmask and the horizontal partition control comprises a mask and an offset.