Abstract
Title:
The role of virtualization in embedded systemsAuthors:
Gernot Heiser School of Computer Science and Engineering
University of New South Wales
Sydney 2052 Australia
National ICT Australia, Sydney,
Australia
Open Kernel Labs, Sydney, Australia
Abstract:
System virtualization, which enjoys immense popularity in the enterprise and personal computing spaces, is recently gaining significant interest in the embedded domain. Starting from a comparison of key characteristics of enterprise systems and embedded systems, we will examine the difference in motivation for the use of system virtual machines, and the resulting differences in the requirements for the technology. We find that these differences are quite substantial, and that virtualization is unable to meet the special requirements of embedded systems. Instead, more general operating-systems technologies are required, which support virtualization as a special case. We argue that high-performance microkernels, specifically L4, are a technology that provides a good match for the requirements of next-generation embedded systems.
BibTeX Entry
@inproceedings{Heiser_08,
doi = {10.1145/1435458},
author = {Gernot Heiser},
booktitle = {1st Workshop on Isolation and Integration in Embedded Systems},
title = {The Role of Virtualization in Embedded Systems},
month = {Apr},
year = {2008},
organization = {ACM SIGOPS},
pages = {11-16},
address = {Glasgow, UK}
}