Amazon patents faster virtual machine memory handling

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising: launching, at a virtualization host, a hypervisor comprising a plurality of emulation routines, wherein individual ones of the emulation routines are used to perform respective tasks triggered by operations initiated at one or more guest virtual machines launched at the virtualization host, wherein the respective tasks require a privilege level which is granted to the hypervisor and not granted to the one or more guest virtual machines, and wherein at least some of the respective tasks are associated with a corresponding hardware subcomponent of the virtualization host; initiating, by a particular guest virtual machine which was launched at the virtualization host, an operation which requires access to a particular virtual address; determining, by a memory management unit (MMU) of the virtualization host, that a valid virtual-to-physical address translation mapping for the particular virtual address which grants permission for the operation initiated by the particular guest virtual machine is not present in a set of address translation entries associated with the particular guest virtual machine; and based on (a) the determining by the MMU that the valid virtual-to-physical address translation mapping for the particular virtual address is not present and (b) a page tag associated with the particular virtual address, performing, at the virtualization host, a task using a particular emulation routine of the plurality of emulation routines, wherein the page tag is stored in a particular address translation entry of the set of address translation entries, and wherein the particular emulation routine is executed without the hypervisor utilizing the particular virtual address to select the particular emulation routine from the plurality of emulation routines.