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The structure of the clouds distributed operating systemA novel system architecture, based on the object model, is the central structuring concept used in the Clouds distributed operating system. This architecture makes Clouds attractive over a wide class of machines and environments. Clouds is a native operating system, designed and implemented at Georgia Tech. and runs on a set of generated purpose computers connected via a local area network. The system architecture of Clouds is composed of a system-wide global set of persistent (long-lived) virtual address spaces, called objects that contain persistent data and code. The object concept is implemented at the operating system level, thus presenting a single level storage view to the user. Lightweight treads carry computational activity through the code stored in the objects. The persistent objects and threads gives rise to a programming environment composed of shared permanent memory, dispensing with the need for hardware-derived concepts such as the file systems and message systems. Though the hardware may be distributed and may have disks and networks, the Clouds provides the applications with a logically centralized system, based on a shared, structured, single level store. The current design of Clouds uses a minimalist philosophy with respect to both the kernel and the operating system. That is, the kernel and the operating system support a bare minimum of functionality. Clouds also adheres to the concept of separation of policy and mechanism. Most low-level operating system services are implemented above the kernel and most high level services are implemented at the user level. From the measured performance of using the kernel mechanisms, we are able to demonstrate that efficient implementations are feasible for the object model on commercially available hardware. Clouds provides a rich environment for conducting research in distributed systems. Some of the topics addressed in this paper include distributed programming environments, consistency of persistent data and fault-tolerance.
Document ID
19930073323
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Dasgupta, Partha
(Georgia Tech Research Inst. Atlanta, GA, United States)
Leblanc, Richard J., Jr.
(Georgia Tech Research Inst. Atlanta, GA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 16, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 1989
Publication Information
Publication: Maryland Univ., The 1989 Workshop on Operating Systems for Mission Critical Computing
Subject Category
Computer Systems
Accession Number
93N70770
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NSF DCS-83-16590
CONTRACT_GRANT: NSF CCR-86-19886
CONTRACT_GRANT: NAG1-430
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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