Electrotechincal Laboratory

1
Network Transferable Computer

• Electrotechincal Laboratory
• Kuniyasu SUZAKI
• http//www.etl.go.jp/suzaki/NTC

2
Outline

• Current computing environment
• What is next? What is NTC?
• Relational work and my research plan at UIUC
• Conclusion

3
Trend of Computing Environment

• CPU becomes faster and faster. (1GHz)
• Memory and disk become larger.(1GB 20GB)
• Network becomes faster and wider.(1Gbps)
• Machine becomes smaller and handy.

• From Single Task OS to Multi task OS
• From CUI to GUI
• Network mobile computing environment
• Machine can emulate other machines and OS.

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Emulator for normal users

• Emulator becomes popular for normal users
• To hide the delay of software development.
• Ex MacOS FAT binary (from 68000 to PowerPC)
• To play games on PC
• Bleem! for PC
• Bleem, Inc. http//www.bleem.com
• PlayStation Emulator on PC
• Bleem, Inc. http//www.bleem.com
• Only 12 workers. The programmer is Randy Linden
  only.
• Virtual Game Station (VGS)
• Connectix Inc. http//www.connectix.com
• PlayStation Emulator on PC

5
Emulator for normal users

• To keep the legacy machines.
• Ex Atrai Emulator, Old Macintosh Emulator
• To use other OSs application because CPU becomes
  much powerful.
• Many people want to use Windows applications even
  if they hate the OS.

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Virtual Machine software

• DOS/V Machine
• VMware ( http//www.vmware.com )
• Plex86(FreeMware) ( http//www.plex86.org )
• Fusion-PC ( http//www.microcode-solutions.com )
• Mac Emulator
• PowerPC Mac
• Virtual PC ( http//www.conectix.com )
• General Machine
• Bochs ( http//www.bochs.com )

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VMware

• Commercial software offered by VMware (
  http//www.vmware.com )
• Professor Mendel Rosenblum established the
  company.
• Emulate DOS/V machine
• Some devices are included Phoenix BIOS, VGA, AMD
  PCnet, Sound Blaster16, etc. We can install
  Windows OS and Linux, etc.
• Most instructions are executed as native code.
• The speed efficiency is more than 80 of the
  native CPU.

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Monitor image of VMware
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Bochs

• Free DOS/V machine emulator offered by Bochs
  (http//www.bochs.com ) Kevin Lawton
• It is under development. No network devices. The
  virtual machine runs as a stand alone.
• Kevin Lawton moved to the development of Plex86
• http//www.plex86.org
• Platform free Emulate
• DOS/V,Sparc/Solaris,Mac,SGI,IBM RS6000, etc.
• Full emulation of x86 instruction. The efficiency
  is not good.

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Emulator for developer

• To get the share of popular CPU
• Crusoe (Transmeta Inc.)
• CMS(Code Morphing Software) emulate X86
• DAISY (Dynamically Architected Instruction Set
  from Yorktown) http//oss.software.ibm.com/develop
  erworks/opensource/daisy
• To get common computing environment on each
  machine
• JAVA
• Intent (http//www.tao-group.com)

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What is next?

• We could get such technical trends emulator,
  high speed network, and mobile devices. How do we
  use them?
• We would like to use the same computer
  environment at anytime, at anywhere, for
  everybody.
• We propose
• NTCNetwork Transferable Computer

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What is NTC?

• NTC can transfer the running OS image via network
  or removable media.

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Basic concept
? Transfer Transfer the disk (All OS image
Memory image and file system) to other machine
disk

• Basic idea of NTC is the same
• of following physical handling.

CPU
CPU
? Resume Restore the memory contents from the
disk
? Hibernate Save the memory contents To the disk
Memory
Memory
Common Architecture
Common Architecture
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Requirement

• Required facilities and functions are
• same architecture machine.
• It is solved by Virtual Machine software.
• the OS can hibernate and resume without the help
  of hardware(BIOS).
• the hibernated OS image, which includes memory
  image and file system, can be transferable by
  network or removable media.
• We cant transfer the disk image from the
  hibernated computer.

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Basic Idea
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Hibernation

• Its a function to suspend and resume the running
  OS.
• Hibernation is develop to keep the battery. It is
  very important function for note PC.
• Basically it depends on BIOS to control devices.
• To stop the hard disk.
• To stop the CPU.
• To stop the memory.

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Specification of BIOS

• To support the hibernation, there are some BIOS
  specifications.
• APM (Advanced Power Management)
• Low power mode interface made by Microsoft and
  Intel (Old specification)
• ACPI (Advanced Configuration Power Interface)
• Low power mode interface made by Intel,Microsoft,
  and Toshiba.
• ACPI2 (2000.8.30) http//www.teleport.com/acpi/
• It can mange multi processors,64bit CPU, Hot
  Plug-in, Buttery control (Speed Step), etc.

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Mode of hibernation

• Standby mode
• The memory keeps OS image and CPU and hard disk
  stop. The machine should keep power of memory.
• Suspend mode
• OS image is moved from memory to hard
  disk(in-volatile memory) and the power is stopped
  entirely.
• Even if this mode, we can not transfer the OS
  image, because the BIOS has to know the state.

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Hibernation which is independent of BIOS

• Normal hibernation is not suitable for NTC.
• Because it depends on BIOS and keeps the state on
  the machine.
• We must use the hibernation which is not
  independent of BIOS.
• Linux has SWSUSP (Software Suspend)
• http//falcon.sch.bme.hu/seasons/linux/swsusp.htm
  l
• It is a special type of shut down and reboot.
  When the machine shuts down, the software keeps
  the running OS image to the SWAP area. When it
  boots, it uses the SWAP area image and restart
  the OS.

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Current Implementation

• Virtual Machine software
• vmware (version 2.0)
• It can run under Linux Windows NT/2000.
• Transferred OS
• Linux (RedHat 6.2)
• With hibernation soft SWSUSP.

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Current Implementation
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Action of NTC
Hibernate
Transfer
Resume
The running OS image on the desktop computer is
hibernated.
The hibernated OS image is transferred by
removable media.
The hibernated OS is resumed on laptop computer
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Resume Time
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Usage for normal user

• Install once, Use any machine
• User is not required to install more than once
  and use same environment on any machines.
• User can bring back office machine environment to
  home.
• User can get the copy which is set up by an
  expert. Expert has good knowledge and experience.
  Normal users can share them.
• When we buy a new machine, we do not need to
  re-install all software again. The setup OS can
  survive.

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Usage for developer

• Up to now debugging requires many steps. Many
  developers are told the debugging point by
  e-mail, get the source code, compile it and
  execute it to reach the debugging point.
• NTC offers platform for collaboration
• Developers can share the same OS environment and
  debugging point from the copy of live OS image.
  They are not required to compile and execute.
• They also can replay the debugging point by the
  use of old OS image.

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The image of NTC world
Expert offers us an excellent OS image.
Mobile user can also share the OS.
User can use the OS image without install
Developer can share the debugging.
OS image is distributed on the net.
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Relational work

• Process migration
• Transfer a process to another machine
• Java
• Program once, run anywhere programming
  environment.
• JavaVM(Byte Code Interpreter)
• Remote virtual display software
• It transfer the display image to another machine.
  
• It doesnt open remote X Window.

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Migration vs. NTC
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Java vs. NTC

• Java can not support OS
• Because there is no supervisor mode.
• According to the reason JavaOS could not build.
• Java is too high abstraction.
• Garbage collection is slow.
• Java could not support hibernation.
• Poor Interruption handling.
• NTC is depends on virtual machine.
• Virtual machine offers us the same environment of
  DOS/V machine. And the CPU power is not so poor.
  (Ex VMware offers us 80 of native CPU speed.)

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Remote Virtual Display vs. NTC

• Remote Virtual Display is popular now.
• VNC (Virtual Network Computer)
• ATT Free software
• http//www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
• Desktop On-Call
• IBM commercial software
• http//www.ibm.co.jp/pspjinfo/javadesk/syoukai1.ht
  ml
• pcAnywhere
• Symantec commercial software
• http//www.symantec.com/region/jp/products/pca/pca
  .html
• RED
• Columbia Univ. Prof. Jason Nieh, research
• http//www.cs.columbia.edu/nieh/research/thin/

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Sample of VNC (Win98 on Linux)
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Remote virtual display vs. NTC
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Next Step (1)

• To control CPU speed
• When we transfer the OS image to another CPU
  machine, the animation play faster or slower.
• We need to control the CPU speed. Im planning to
  use the DSRT2 (Dynamic Soft Real Time CPU
  Scheduler 2.0) to solve the problem.
• http//cairo.cs.uiuc.edu/software/DSRT-2/dsrt-2.ht
  ml

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Next Step (2)

• We need the fast and secure transfer for NTC.
• Im planning to transfer the OS image from ETL to
  UIUC. Im planning to use
• Coda Distributed file system developed CMU.
• iSCSI Internet SCSI
• rsync ssh rsync is efficient backup tool and
  ssh is secure shell.

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Next Step (3)

• To adapt real mobile environment.
• Current version NTC is transfer the stand alone
  OS image. I would like to adapt it to real mobile
  environment.
• I would like to adapt Mobile IP to distinguish
  the machine in the network.

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Conclusion

• We propose the method, named NTC, to transfer the
  running OS image to another machine.
• This research is done with Waseda Univ and
  Hiroshima-City Univ.
• The test version of OS image is distributed the
  following home page.
• http//www.etl.go.jp/suzaki/NTC

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Animation for NTC