VINO: The 1994 Fall Harvest

Abstract

Current operating systems are designed to provide least-common-denominator service to a variety of applications. They export few internal kernel facilities, and those which are exported have irregular interfaces. As a result, resource intensive applications such as database management systems and multimedia applications, are often poorly served by the operating system. These applications often go to great lengths to bypass normal kernel mechanisms to achieve acceptable performance. We describe a new kernel architecture, the VINO kernel, which addresses the limitations of conventional operating systems. The VINO design is driven by three principles: 1.) Application Directed Policy: the operating system provides a collection of mechanisms, but applications dictate the policies applied to those mechanisms. 2.) Kernel as Toolbox: applications can reuse the kernel's primitives. 3.) Universal Resource Access: all resources are accessed through a single, common interface. VINO's power and flexibility make it an ideal platform for research in operating systems and resource intensive applications.