Resource management architecture for future information appliances

Issue title: Real-Time and Embedded Computing Systems

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Oikawa, Shuichi | Nakajima, Tatsuo

Affiliations: Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Waseda University, 3-4-1 #61-505, Okubo, Shinjuku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan

Note: [] Corresponding author: Shuichi Oikawa is currently at the Department of Computer Science, University of Tsukuba. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: This paper presents our CPU resource management architecture and mechanisms for future information appliances. Information appliances are special purpose computational devices. Their examples include mobile phones, digital TVs, and vehicle navigation systems. We aim to use virtualized operating systems on future information appliances for the provision of better security and reliability features since their shared use in ubiquitous and pervasive computing environments will expose them to various kinds of access and use. CPU resource management is required for two purposes, the support of time sensitive applications and the isolation and protection of each virtualized operating system. Our software architecture incorporates the CPU resource management mechanisms in both virtualized operating systems and their hosting environment. CPU resource management mechanisms in virtualized operating systems are for the support of time sensitive applications while those in the hosting environment are for the isolation and protection of virtualized operating systems. We have implemented the proposed architecture in Linux as the host environment and UML (User-Mode Linux) as a virtualized operating system. The measurement results showed that the implementation of our architecture could effectively isolate and protect the CPU resource utilization by virtualized operating systems and also their applications.

Keywords: real-time systems, embedded systems, operating systems, virtual machines, resource management

Journal: Journal of Embedded Computing, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 133-144, 2005