π: Effective Use of Metacomputation for Structuring Operating Systems (original) (raw)

π : Effective Use of Metacomputation for Structuring Operating Systems

1993

To respond to continuing hardware advances and changing application demands, operating systems must be flexible. Recently developed metacomputation techniques can provide the desired flexibility. The πarchitecture investigates the use of metaobject protocols to tailor subsystems of operating systems. It allows effective utilization of events and resources through interfaces for tailorable object implementations. Its main contributions are flexible event management, scope reification and change management. The challenges and possible solutions are described in the context of a distributed shared object subsystem.

a new approach to the design of distributed operating systems

Oops Messenger, 1993

Modern computer hardware technology allows a single architecture to be used for a range of machines from supercomputers to toasters. Hardware designers have recognized that an architecture should be scalable and system software developers must address the same issue. Scalability means that the architecture must be flexible enough to satisfy diverse hardware and application needs. The key to operating system flexibility is to base the architecture on a high-level graph model and to use the generalized object model and metacomputing. The resulting framework is a uniform object model for application and system software. Classically, operating system flexibility means that the architecture must handle various processor capabilities, differing memory and disk sizes and a vast range of peripheral devices. Today, it also includes dealing with multiprocessor systems, diverse network topologies and multimedia input/output. In the future, as radio-based networking becomes common, changes will be dynamic, requiring the flexible operating system to adapt as elements of a distributed system move into and out of range. Different classes of applications have different requirements. The valuable data managed by an OODB must be maintained over long periods of time while a multimedia application requires guaranteed bandwidth. The necessary services and the relative emphasis on different functionalities vary drastically.

An Object Model for Conventional Operating Systems

We have developed an object model for conventional (UNIX-like) systems. It can be used for extending such systems with persistent, shared, protected, and distributed objects. It allows objects to coexist with, access, and be accessed by existing components of the operating system, and has been developed by applying much of the work done in naming, organization, access, and protection of conventional resources to support naming, organization, access, and protection of objects.

SPACE: a new approach to operating system abstraction

Proceedings 1991 International Workshop on Object Orientation in Operating Systems, 1991

Object-oriented operating systems, as well as conventional O/S designs, present an overly restrictive level of abstraction to the programmer. Models of objects, processes, concurrency, etc., are embedded within the system in such a way that they are dicult to extend or replace.

The new structure of an operating system

1992

This paper proposes the new structure for an operating system in an open and mobile computing enviromnent. The structure is characterized by object/metaobject separation, metahieraxchy, and object migration. We then present the practical implementation of the Apertos operating syste~n based on the proposed structure, where reflectors are introduced for metaobject programming and MetaCore for providing the common primitives. We also present some measurement results of the Apertos operating system.