SGER: Prototyping Application-Specific Kernel Virtual Machines for Networking

University Of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia PA

Investigators

Abstract

The desire for integrated services in networking research often results in significant shortfalls in service provision for some specialized applications. While the applications may be able to directly compensate with additional code, the placement of many necessary resources in protected address spaces with rigid interfaces (e.g., the operating system) may make effective compensation difficult if not impossible in practice. The experimental research proposed here, in Multiple restricted Virtual Machines (MrVM), takes a high-risk but potentially very promising approach to addressing this problem. The basic notion is to construct an application-specific complement of virtual machine services to embed into a conventional operating system. In this way, the application-specific requirements can be met, while the restrictions placed on MrVM interpretation insulate applications from each other and from the shared services.