Open Kernel Labs
NICTA
UNSW
We make the case for virtual shared memory (VSM) for supporting future many-core chips. VSM is a shared memory abstraction implemented over distributed memory by a hypervisor, providing the operating system direct access to all memory in the system. VSM on a distributed-memory system, such as a many-core chip with local memory associated with each core or small group of cores, provides a non-uniform memory model to the operating system. We argue, based on our experience with a prototype called vNUMA (implemented on a cluster), that this model can perform well for NUMA-aware software. The indirection layer provided by the virtualization provides benefits to hardware manufacturers, as it can absorb certain faults, including faulty nodes and packet losses in the interconnect.
@inproceedings{Heiser_09_2, address = {Las Vegas, NV, USA}, author = {Heiser, Gernot}, booktitle = {IEEE Consumer Communications and Networking Conference}, keywords = {virtual machines, consumer electronics, operating systems}, month = jan, pages = {1--5}, paperurl = {https://trustworthy.systems/publications/nicta_full_text/1404.pdf}, title = {Hypervisors for Consumer Electronics}, year = {2009} }