What mechanism is used for second-level address translation under Intel processors?

The Extended Page Table (EPT) is the mechanism used for second-level address translation under Intel processors. EPT allows the virtual memory management to use an additional layer of translation between guest virtual addresses and host physical addresses. This is particularly useful in virtualization scenarios, where multiple virtual machines might be running and they each have their own virtual address spaces.

By utilizing EPT, the overhead of translating memory addresses in a virtualized environment is significantly reduced. The hardware provides a way to manage this translation more efficiently by mapping guest physical addresses directly to host physical addresses, thus improving performance and reducing the need for extensive manipulation of page tables by the hypervisor.

This technology is critical in modern computing, especially as virtualization becomes more prevalent in server and cloud environments. Other options presented—such as Rapid Virtualization Indexing, Memory Address Translation, and Direct Memory Access—represent concepts related to memory management and data access, but they do not specifically pertain to the second-level address translation employed by Intel processors.