Are Virtual Machine MOnitors Microkernels Done Right?
Hand, Warfield, Fraswer, Kotsovinos, Magenheimer (2005)
What kind of paper?
- Position paper
- VMMs are the practical approach to systems research
- VMMs enable innovation
- VMMs produce the virtue of microkernels
Differences between VMMs and Microkernels (or why VMMs are better)
- Microkernels are prone to liability inversion: The OS depends on
user-level components (e.g., pagers); avoiding deadlock is hard, but
VMMs are designed to avoid such problems: resource management is
done in the VMM; VMs are isolated.
- IPC performance dominates microkernel design, but isn't relevant to
VMM: inter-server communication is paramount in microkernel systems, but
simply network communication in VMMs.
- Compatability achieved in VMMs through guest OS's; in microkernels,
it required huge compatability libraries.
- VMMs provide developer familiarity, which improves innovation.
Similarities
- The quest for narrow interfaces.
- High-confidence in system security.
- Investigate
ilities
, not performance.