CAREER: Rethinking Virtualization in Cloud-Native Systems

云原生技术为开发和管理当今无处不在的云应用程序提供了先进而有效的手段。例如，单片云应用程序正被更小、更简单的“微服务”图所取代，以降低开发复杂性并提高代码速度。此外，这些微服务由云原生系统自动管理，将云用户从云内应用程序的繁重操作中解放出来。不幸的是，支持云原生系统（如虚拟化）的系统软件在满足新兴的基于微服务的云应用程序的严格需求（如强而轻量的隔离、快速的微服务间通信和细粒度的弹性控制）方面面临着严峻的挑战。这个CAREER项目建议对虚拟化技术进行全面研究，以1)确定资源隔离、I/O通信和服务弹性方面的关键瓶颈；2)提出新的系统虚拟化解决方案来解决这些瓶颈；3)用真实世界的原型验证所提出的解决方案。本项目开发的知识将推进云原生系统中系统软件的关键方面，从而使所有在这些系统上运行的社会不可或缺的云应用受益。研究成果将通过校企合作和技术转移对生产云原生系统的设计和实施产生影响，并集成到核心计算机科学课程中。该项目将通过夏令营、高中生/指导员指导以及吸纳未被充分代表的少数族裔和女性工程师等多种拓展计划，为研究生、本科生和高中生提供计算机系统领域的培训。CAREER项目的总体目标是研究和开发用于高度安全、高效和弹性的云原生系统的虚拟化技术。首先，该项目将开发一个强大而轻量级的隔离架构，用于高效、安全地沙盒分布式微服务。它将把单一的内核功能转移到更加孤立和轻量级的用户空间内核微服务上，为云原生应用程序的所有微服务提供系统服务（和沙盒）。其次，该项目将为交互式微服务构建快速的用户空间（网络和存储）数据平面。它将改进内核I/O堆栈，以保持高质量的内核功能，同时增加现有的I/O堆栈，以解决关键的层间数据通信/处理瓶颈。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Cloud-native technologies offer advanced and effective means to develop and manage today’s ubiquitous cloud applications. For example, monolithic cloud applications are being replaced with graphs of smaller, simpler “microservices” for reduced development complexity and increased code velocity. Further, such microservices are managed by cloud-native systems automatically, liberating cloud users from onerous operations of their in-cloud applications. Unfortunately, systems software that underpins cloud-native systems, such as virtualization, faces critical challenges to meeting the stringent needs of emerging microservices-based cloud applications, such as strong-yet-lightweight isolation, fast inter-microservice communication, and fine-grained elasticity control. This CAREER project proposes to conduct a holistic study of virtualization techniques to 1) identify critical bottlenecks in resource isolation, I/O communication, and service elasticity; 2) propose new system virtualization solutions to address these bottlenecks; and 3) validate the proposed solutions with real-world prototypes. The knowledge developed in this project will advance the key aspects of systems software in cloud-native systems, thus benefiting all cloud applications that are integral to society running on these systems. The research outcomes will have influences on the design and implementation of production cloud-native systems via university-enterprise collaborations and technology transfer and be integrated into core computer science courses. This project will provide training in the computer systems domain to graduate students, undergraduate students, and high school students, via diverse outreach plans of summer camps, high school student/instructor mentorship, and the inclusion of underrepresented minority and women engineers. The overarching goal of the CAREER project is to investigate and develop virtualization techniques for highly secure, efficient, and elastic cloud-native systems. First, the project will develop a strong-yet-lightweight isolation architecture for efficiently and securely sandboxing distributed microservices. It will move monolithic kernel functions to more isolated and lightweight userspace kernel microservices to provide system services to (and sandbox) all microservices of a cloud-native application. Second, the project will build fast userspace (network and storage) data planes tailored for interactive microservices. It will retrofit kernel I/O stacks to preserve high-quality kernel functionality meanwhile augmenting existing I/O stacks to address critical inter-layer data communication/processing bottlenecks.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.