VELOSITY: A New Architecture for Operating System Design and Implementation

我们的计算基础设施是建立在50年前的软件架构上的。Velosity程序是一种大胆的系统设计和实现方法，它利用了过去五十年来在操作系统架构、程序综合和安全性方面取得的进展。随着超大规模集成电路（VLSI）实现了前所未有的硬件创新和发展，Velosity解决了当今对灵活、可靠和安全的系统软件的需求，释放了未来硬件平台的力量。在过去的三十年中，我们的硬件基础设施一直基于x86单一文化。根据图灵奖得主大卫·帕特森的说法，摩尔定律的终结带来了“计算机架构的新黄金时代”。这个新时代对系统软件提出了新的要求：跨硬件实现的可移植性和支持新兴平台的能力。Velosity的长期目标是开发操作系统组件库，这些组件来源于与机器无关的规范，包括功能、安全性和内省能力。从这些正式指定的安全组件中，我们可以构建定制的操作系统或系统软件。因此，拥有新硬件的供应商可以精确地组装具有所需功能的系统软件。Velosity通过结合领域特定语言（DSL）和程序合成来解决当今的硬件异构问题。操作系统设计者在专门为此目的而设计的DSL中指定小组件所需的功能和安全属性；硬件供应商使用不同的DSL描述其硬件或硬件接口的语义。通过将这两种dsl与最先进的程序合成和编译技术相结合，我们可以为广泛的硬件平台生产系统软件，而无需在平台之间移植（翻译）低级系统的繁琐过程。velocity要求对操作系统架构、DSL开发和程序合成进行研究。在这里，我们提出了四个挑战：1)设计和开发一个组件库，我们可以从中构建系统软件。2)设计和实现用于指定系统功能的dsl，以及3)硬件能力。4)对现有程序合成技术进行改编，开发系统软件新技术。在五年的探索基金期内，我将培养两名博士研究生，五名硕士研究生和一名博士后。综上所述，VLSI技术为硬件设计带来了两个基本好处，既可以开发可重用组件库，也可以进行架构实验。velocity为系统软件提供了相同的基本好处。它的组件库是可重用的组件，这将允许在异构硬件上进行架构实验。因此，Velosity为硬件平台提供了合适的系统软件堆栈。

Impact Our computing infrastructure is built on a fifty year old software architecture. The Velosity program is a bold approach to system design and implementation, leveraging the past fifty years of progress in operating system architecture, program synthesis, and security. As Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) enabled unprecedented hardware innovation and evolution, Velosity addresses today's need for flexible, reliable, and secure system software, unleashing the power of tomorrow's hardware platforms. For the past thirty years, our hardware infrastructure has been based upon the x86 monoculture. According to Turing laureate David Patterson, the end of Moore's Law produced "A new golden age for computer architecture." This new era brings new demands for system software: portability across hardware implementations and the ability to support emerging platforms. Objectives, Methodology and HQP The long-term objective of Velosity is to develop libraries of OS components, derived from machine independent specifications, that include functional, security, and introspective capabilities. From these formally specified, secure components we can construct customized operating systems or system software. Thus, a vendor with new hardware can assemble system software with precisely the needed functionality. Velosity addresses today's hardware heterogeneity through a combination of domain specific languages (DSL) and program synthesis. Operating system designers specify the required functionality and security properties of small components in a DSL designed specifically for that purpose; hardware vendors describe the semantics of their hardware or hardware interfaces using a different DSL. By combining these two DSLs with state-of-the-art program synthesis and compilation techniques, we produce system software for a wide range of hardware platforms without the tedious process of porting (translating) low-level systems between platforms. Velosity requires research in operating system architecture, DSL development, and program synthesis. Here, we address four challenges: 1) Design and development of a component library from which we can construct system software. 2) Design and implementation of DSLs for specifying system functionality, and 3) hardware capabilities. 4) Adaptation of existing program synthesis techniques and development of new techniques for system software. Over the five-year Discovery Grant term, I will train two PhD students, five MSc students, and one postdoctoral fellow. To summarize, VLSI technology brought two fundamental benefits to hardware design, enabling both development of libraries of reusable component and architectural experimentation. Velosity provides the same essential benefits to system software. Its component libraries are reusable components, which will allow for architectural experimentation on heterogeneous hardware. Thus, Velosity provides hardware platforms with the right system software stack.