The Quest-V separation kernel for mixed criticality systems
Date
2013-11-23
DOI
Authors
Li, Ye
West, Richard
Missimer, Eric
Version
OA Version
Citation
Li, Ye; West, Richard; Missimer, Eric. "The Quest-V Separation Kernel for Mixed Criticality Systems", Technical Report BUCS-TR-2013-018, Computer Science Department, Boston University, November 23, 2013. [Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/2144/11426]
Abstract
Multi- and many-core processors are becoming increasingly popular in embedded systems. Many of these processors now feature hardware virtualization capabilities, such as the ARM Cortex A15, and x86 processors with Intel VT-x or AMD-V support. Hardware virtualization offers opportunities to partition physical resources, including processor cores, memory and I/O devices amongst guest virtual machines. Mixed criticality systems and services can then co-exist on the same platform in separate virtual machines. However, traditional virtual machine systems are too expensive because of the costs of trapping into hypervisors to multiplex and manage machine physical resources on behalf of separate guests. For example, hypervisors are needed to schedule separate VMs on physical processor cores. In this paper, we discuss the design of the Quest-V separation kernel, that partitions services of different criticalities in separate virtual machines, or {\em sandboxes}. Each sandbox encapsulates a subset of machine physical resources that it manages without requiring intervention of a hypervisor. Moreover, a hypervisor is not needed for normal operation, except to bootstrap the system and establish communication channels between sandboxes.