MULTICORE VIRTUALIZATION WORKING GROUP (MVWG™)

Objective

The MULTICORE VIRTUALIZATION WORKING GROUP (MVWG™) will develop standards-based mechanisms and guidelines that will help adoption of virtualization in next generation networking and compute nodes..

Overview

Currently, the MVWG is focusing on two primary areas:

• Classifying Virtualization-related Features Implemented Within Processors
  Many processor vendors include a variety of virtualization hooks to help enable certain features or target different application spaces (i.e. core virtualization, I/O virtualization, H/W accelerator virtualization). However, it's often difficult to determine the specific nature of these virtualization hooks, thereby making it difficult for system developers to choose the most appropriate device for their application needs. For example, virtualization has become prevalent in applications that include mobile phones, networking, mobile Infrastructure, data center, cloud computing, and others. The MVWG will define a detailed specification for categorizing and mapping the various virtualization hooks within SoCs.
   
• Linux Modules as Proof of Concept
  The current way of supporting virtualization in embedded systems requires at least 3 heterogeneous environments: Hypervisor, Real Time OS, and Feature Rich OS. Hence, this increasing complexity leads to more development cost and inefficiencies. System vendors desire to transition to a single environment while still meeting the conflicting goals of performance, isolation, and flexibility of features. The MVWG will implement various solutions (as proof of concept) using standard open source Linux to help transition the industry to new paradigm. This will enable the rapid adoption of virtualization in the embedded space for both compute and networking nodes.

Status

The MVWG meets every two weeks (typically via webmeeting).

Chairpersons