Policies and metrics for fair resource sharing

Abstract

Performance isolation is essential to operating systems shared by dependable services. Unfortunately, most such systems, including real-time operating systems and VMMs, only fairly divide and account for CPU cycles. We submit that dependable services require specifying and enforcing policies for all resources, and that current metrics for evaluating fair sharing are insufficient. This paper proposes new policy specifications and metrics, and illustrates these with the help of a new operating system that supports holistic resource sharing.