Architecture for adaptive resource assignment to virtualized mixed-criticality real-time systems

Abstract

System virtualization is a powerful approach for the creation of integrated systems, which meet the high functionality and reliability requirements of complex embedded applications. It is in particular well-suited for mixed-criticality systems, since the often applied pessimistic manner of critical system engineering leads to heavily under-utilized resources. Existing static resource management approaches for virtualized systems are inappropriate for the dynamically varying resource requirements of upcoming adaptive systems. In this paper, we propose a dynamic resource management protocol for system virtualization that factors criticality levels in and allows the addition of subsystems at runtime. The two-level architecture offers flexibility across virtual machine borders and has the potential to improve the resource utilization. In addition, it provides the capability to adapt at runtime according to defects or changes of the environment.