Experimentation with a Reconfigurable Micro-Kernel
Bodhisattwa Mukherjee and Karsten Schwan
College of Computing
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia
Abstract
Since the implementation of operating system functions can
significantly affect the performance of parallel programs, it is
important to customize operating system functionality for specific
application programs. In this paper, we propose an architecture for a
reconfigurable micro-kernel. This kernel can be configured at
compile-time and at execution-time to suit varying application
requirements. Such a micro-kernel can be used for the development of
high performance operating systems and applications for parallel and
distributed systems. We have implemented the reconfigurable
micro-kernel on multiple parallel machines, including a 32-node GP1000
BBN Butterfly, SGI multiprocessors, and a 32-node Kendall Square
Supercomputer.
Download the full text of this paper in
ASCII form (32,068 bytes).
To Become a USENIX Member, please see our
Membership Information.