Automatic Hybridization of Runtime Systems

Abstract

The hybrid runtime (HRT) model offers a plausible path towards high performance and efficiency. By integrating the OS kernel, parallel runtime, and application, an HRT allows the runtime developer to leverage the full privileged feature set of the hardware and specialize OS services to the runtime's needs. However, conforming to the HRT model currently requires a complete port of the runtime and application to the kernel level, for example to our Nautilus kernel framework, and this requires knowledge of kernel internals. In response, we developed Multiverse, a system that bridges the gap between a built-from-scratch HRT and a legacy runtime system. Multiverse allows existing, unmodified applications and runtimes to be brought into the HRT model without any porting effort whatsoever. Developers simply recompile their package with our compiler toolchain, and Multiverse automatically splits the execution of the application between the domains of a legacy OS and an HRT environment. To the user, the package appears to run as usual on Linux, but the bulk of it now runs as a kernel. The developer can then incrementally extend the runtime and application to take advantage of the HRT model. We describe the design and implementation of Multiverse, and illustrate its capabilities using the Racket runtime system.