Interface for heterogeneous kernels: A framework to enable hybrid OS designs targeting high performance computing on manycore architectures

Abstract

Turning towards exascale systems and beyond, it has been widely argued that the currently available systems software is not going to be feasible due to various requirements such as the ability to deal with heterogeneous architectures, the need for systems level optimization targeting specific applications, elimination of OS noise, and at the same time, compatibility with legacy applications. To cope with these issues, a hybrid design of operating systems where light-weight specialized kernels can cooperate with a traditional OS kernel seems adequate, and a number of recent research projects are now heading into this direction. This paper presents Interface for Heterogeneous Kernels (IHK), a general framework enabling hybrid kernel designs in systems equipped with manycore processors and/or accelerators. IHK provides a range of capabilities, such as resource partitioning, management of heterogeneous OS kernels, as well as a low-level communication layer among the kernels. We describe IHK's interface and demonstrate its feasibility for hybrid kernel designs through executing various different lightweight OS kernels on top of it, which are specialized for certain types of applications. We use the Intel Xeon Phi, Intel's latest manycore coprocessor, as our experimental platform.