Mesovirtualization: Lightweight virtualization technique for embedded systems

These days, embedded and ubiquitous devices are becoming feature rich, and multiprocessor architectures for those devices are on the horizon. In order to utilize the resources of multiprocessor systems efficiently and securely, virtual machine monitors (VMMs) have been common among servers and desktop systems. The same can be applied if the cost of virtualization becomes much less expensive. In this paper, we introduce mesovirtualization, a new lightweight virtualization technique. Mesovirtualization makes VMMs smaller and requires only a few modifications for the guest operating system (OS) source code. We designed and implemented a VMM named Gandalf according to mesovirtualization. Our experimental results show that Linux on Gandalf performs better than Xen-Linux. Therefore, mesovirtualization makes virtualization environments suitable for embedded and ubiquitous devices.