CS 395/495/441 Resource Virtualization Dinda, Winter 2006 Page 1 of 6 Resource Virtualization Syllabus Web Page http://www.cs.northwestern.edu/~pdinda/virt Instructor Peter A. Dinda Technological Institute, Room L463 847-467-7859 [email protected] Office hours: Thursdays, 2-3:30pm or by appointment Teaching assistant Jack Lange Ford 2-221 847-467-4708 [email protected] Office hours: Wednesdays and Fridays, 10:30-12 Location and Time Lecture: Tech M152 (we will probably move this to Ford S-340) Tuesdays and Thursdays, 3:30-5 TA-led Recitation/Discussion: Computer Systems Lab (Ford S-340) Mondays, 5-6pm Prerequisites Required CS 213 or (ECE 205 and ECE 231) or equivalent computer systems course Highly recommended CS 343 or equivalent operating systems course Highly recommended CS 340 or equivalent networking course Highly recommended Familiarity with a systems programming language such as C or C++. Familiarity with a scripting language such as Perl or Python. Recommended Familiarity with computer architecture, ideally to the level of ECE 361. (CS 213 is the minimum sufficient level)CS 395/495/441 Resource Virtualization Dinda, Winter 2006 Page 2 of 6 The purpose behind these prerequisites is to assure that you understand the principles of how processors, computer systems, and networks work coming into the class and are able to do systems-level programming. If you do not meet some of these prerequisites, but feel you are prepared to take the course, please contact me. Readings Readings for the course will be in the form of research papers. A separate reading list is provided. There is no textbook, although I will place a copy of Smith and Nair’s excellent new book on reserve in the library. Objectives, framework, philosophy, and caveats A basic principle in computer science is that of indirection, creating a new layer between two existing layers. By introducing a new layer into a software system, it often becomes straightforward to do many things and the system becomes more flexible. However, there is a tension: a new layer may make the system slower. A classic example is adding a programming language to a system. For example, the EMACS text editor has a core data manipulation library written in C coupled with a Lisp interpreter, through which the library can be used. Much of the editor, and the many extensions people have added to it are written in Lisp, which is arguably much easier than writing them in C and sufficiently fast for text editing. Currently, there is considerable excitement in the operating systems, networking, and distributed systems communities over what we shall call resource virtualization. The basic idea is to add a software layer that provides virtual machines, virtual networks, and even virtual services that are implemented on top of the existing physical resources and services in the network. Because these resources are virtual, we can potentially create a great many of them, make them private to their users, customize them to particular purposes, simplify their administration by making them user- or group-specific, and even inspect them from the outside to monitor their performance or detect intrusions. This course will examine resource virtualization, from the highly influential early work in the 1970s to the present. In particular, it will include: • Architectural support for virtualization • Traditional OS-level virtualization • Paravirtualization • Virtual servers • Emulation and binary translation • Language-level virtualization • Virtual networking and overlays • Virtual devices • Virtual storage and SANs • Virtual servicesCS 395/495/441 Resource Virtualization Dinda, Winter 2006 Page 3 of 6 • Virtual machine migration • Remote display • Virtualization-based computing environments • Measurement, inference, adaptation and reservation • Security and virtual machines Almost all of the readings for the course will be in the form of research papers, with some experience report papers added as well. We will generally read 1-3 papers or equivalent materials for each session, covering fundamental ideas and important recent results. Each paper will be formally presented to the group by a student and then discussed in a round-table manner. A reading list will be available that includes the papers to be read, as well as other related papers. This is a graduate course and all students in it will be treated like graduate students. I will assume that you are interested in this material, that you can motivate yourself to learn about it, and that you will not be afraid to venture into uncharted territory (i.e., do research). The undergraduate section will differ primarily in that the expectations for the project will be slightly lower. Projects in the previous iteration of the course resulted in several papers published at high quality workshops and conferences. Project Over the course of the quarter, you will apply what you learn to a project of your choice, and then document your project in a high quality paper and open presentation. Project topics will be chosen in consultation with me. Projects may be done individually or in groups. Project complexity and expectations will be tied to group size. There are specific projects that I have in mind that would be well-geared to groups of two or three. I will expect weekly project reports. The expectation for graduate students is that the project will be quality work that the students would not be embarrassed to submit to a workshop. The expectation for undergraduates is that the project be something they would be proud to list on their resumes, although all students are encouraged to aim high. There is a related long-term research project to this course, Virtuoso (more information at http://virtuoso.cs.northwestern.edu/), so there is a potential for projects in this course to turn into longer-term research efforts. All projects will be presented at a public colloquium. Example project ideas will be provided in a separate paper handout. Because of the high expectations placed on the project, it is vital that you choose to work on something that interests you deeply and that I can advise strongly.CS 395/495/441 Resource Virtualization Dinda, Winter 2006 Page 4 of 6 Exams There will be no exams Grading 50 % Project, including weekly progress