• Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
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• v.34 no.12
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• pp.618-629
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• 2007

In this paper, we propose an effective memory test environment, called a virtualized kernel, for 64bit multi-core computing environments. The term of effectiveness means that we can test all of the physical memory space, even the memory space occupied by the kernel itself, without rebooting. To obtain this capability, our virtualized kernel provides four mechanisms. The first is direct accessing to physical memory both in kernel and user mode, which allows applying various test patterns to any place of physical memory. The second is making kernel virtualized so that we can run two or more kernel image at the different location of physical memory. The third is isolating memory space used by different instances of virtualized kernel. The final is kernel hibernation, which enables the context switch between kernels. We have implemented the proposed virtualized kernel by modifying the latest Linux kernel 2.6.18 running on Intel Xeon system that has two 64bit dual-core CPUs with hyper-threading technology and 2GB main memory. Experimental results have shown that the two instances of virtualized kernel run at the different location of physical memory and the kernel hibernation works well as we have designed. As the results, the every place of physical memory can be tested without rebooting.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.12 no.5
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• pp.103-112
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• 2007

In this paper, we implement a hypervisor that runs multiple uC/OS-II real-time kernels on one microprocessor. The hypervisor virtualizes microprocessor and memory that are main resources managed by uC/OS-II kernel. Microprocessor is virtualized by controlling interrupts that uC/OS-II real-time kernel handles and memory is virtualized by partitioning physical memory. The hypervisor consists of three components: interrupt control routines that virtualize timer interrupt and software interrupt, a startup code that initializes the hypervisor and uC/OS-II kernels, and an API that provides communication between two kernels. The original uC/OS-II kernel needs to be modified slightly in source-code level to run on the hypervisor. We performed a real-time test and an independent computation test on Jupiter 32-bit EISC microprocessor and showed that the virtualized kernels run without problem. The result of our research can reduce the hardware cost, the system space and weight, and system power consumption when the hypervisor is applied in embedded applications that require many embedded microprocessors.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.1-11
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• 2012

Recently, we have seen several implementations that virtualize the ARM architecture. Since the current ARM architecture is not possible to be virtualized using the traditional technique called "trap-and-emulation", we usually detect all virtualization sensitive instructions during the run-time of a guest kernel and emulate them virtually rather than executing them directly. The emulation for virtualization is usually implemented either by binary translation or interpretation. Our research is about how to improve the performance of emulation for virtualization based on interpretation. The interpretation usually requires a few steps: instruction fetching, instruction decoding and instruction executing. In this paper, we propose a method that decodes all virtualization sensitive instructions during the compilation time of a guest kernel and reduces the time required for interpretation during the run time of the guest kernel. Our method provides both implementation simplicity and performance improvement of emulation for virtualization based on interpretation.

• KIISE Transactions on Computing Practices
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.473-478
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• 2016

Server virtualization provides abstraction of physical resources to users and thus accomplishes high resource utilization and flexibility. However, the characteristics of server virtualization, such as the limited number of physical resources shared by virtual machines, can cause problems, mainly performance interference. The performance interference is caused by the fact that the CPU scheduler running on the host operating system schedules virtual machines without considering the characteristics of the virtual machine's internal process. To address performance interference, a number of research activities to improve performance interference have been conducted, but do not deal with the fundamental analysis of performance interference. In this paper, in order to analyze the cause of performance interference, we carry out profiling in a variety of scenarios in a virtualized environment based on KVM. As a result, we analyze the phenomenon of the performance interference in terms of CPU scheduling and propose an efficient scheduling solution.