CSR: Small: I/O Virtualization at the Device File Boundary and its Applications

虚拟化允许多台虚拟计算机安全地共享一台物理计算机的硬件资源。这已成为现代计算机安全、资源整合和管理的关键技术。在硬件资源中，输入和输出(I/O)设备由于其功能和实施的巨大多样性而被证明很难虚拟化；然而，I/O设备对于从智能手机到数据中心服务器的现代计算机非常重要。它们不仅包括传感器和执行器等人类输入和输出设备，还包括图形处理单元(GPU)和现场可编程门阵列(FPGA)等计算资源。已知的I/O虚拟化解决方案通常在开发工作和支持的设备功能之间挣扎。该项目不仅旨在解决这一僵局，而且将I/O虚拟化从本地连接的I/O设备扩展到网络I/O虚拟化-通过网络获得的计算机的I/O设备。它还将展示针对移动设备和数据中心的网络I/O虚拟化的新颖、引人注目的应用案例。设备文件是类Unix操作系统用于I/O设备的抽象概念，可以作为I/O虚拟化的边界。该项目的重点是三个技术贡献：第一，高性能的跨计算机文件操作，允许驻留在另一台计算机上的设备驱动程序高效地执行一台计算机发出的文件操作，无论是虚拟的还是物理的，甚至通过网络。其次，该项目将在共享I/O设备的多台计算机之间提供故障和数据隔离，并在不牺牲设备文件边界的潜在好处的情况下为它们提供正确性和性能保证。最后，该项目将展示网络I/O虚拟化在移动和服务器系统中的新应用，包括数据中心的加速器整合和移动设备之间的I/O共享。该项目将利用与行业领先者的合作，确保技术及时转移到行业中，并对移动设备和数据中心的商业开发产生广泛影响。该项目将提供新的系统组件，用于向不同的学习者社区教授移动和嵌入式系统。最后，由于移动设备已经渗透到各行各业，数据中心已经成为个人计算的支柱，该项目有可能通过降低数据中心的运营成本和实现移动设备的新用途来影响这个全球社会及其经济。

Virtualization allows multiple virtual computers to securely share the hardware resources of a physical computer. This has become a critical technology for security, resource consolidation and management in modern computers. Among hardware resources, input and output (I/O) devices have proven to be hard to virtualize because of the great diversity in their functionality and implementation; yet, I/O devices are very important for modern computers from smartphones to data center servers. They include not only human input and output devices such as sensors and actuators, but also computational resources like graphics processing unit (GPU) and field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Known I/O virtualization solutions often struggle between development effort and supported device functionality. This project aims at not only solving this impasse but also extending I/O virtualization from locally connected I/O devices to network I/O virtualization - I/O devices from computers available via network. It will also demonstrate the novel, compelling application cases of network I/O virtualization for both mobile devices and data centers. Device file, an abstraction used by Unix-like operating systems for I/O devices, can be the sweet spot as the boundary for I/O virtualization. The project's focus centers around three technical contributions: First, high-performance cross-computer file operations that allow file operations issued by one computer to be efficiently executed by device drivers residing in another computer, virtual or physical, even over network. Second, this project will provide fault and data isolation between multiple computers sharing an I/O device and provide correctness and performance guarantees to them without sacrificing the potential benefits of the device file boundary. Finally, this project will demonstrate the novel applications of network I/O virtualization for both mobile and server systems, including accelerator consolidation in data centers and I/O sharing between mobile devices.The project will leverage collaborations with industry leaders to ensure a timely transfer of technologies into industry and there is a broad impact on the commercial development of mobile devices and data centers. The project will provide new system components for teaching mobile and embedded systems to a diverse community of learners. Finally, as mobile devices have penetrated all walks of life and data centers have become the backbone of personal computing, the project has the potential to impact this global society and its economy by reducing the operational cost of data centers and by enabling novel use of mobile devices.