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SUMMARY:MirageOS: compiling a functional cloud - Anil Madhavapeddy - Unive
 rsity of Cambridge Computer Laboratory
DTSTART:20131204T141500Z
DTEND:20131204T151500Z
UID:TALK47382@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:David Greaves
DESCRIPTION:We are now used to being roused out of bed by news of the late
 st serious\nInternet security alert or major data leak. The software servi
 ces we now\nuse are tremendously complex\, and mash together a complex spe
 ctrum of\npolicy and mechanisms. I'll talk about MirageOS\, a clean-slate 
 operating\nsystem we've been building in the Computer Lab which unifies th
 ese\nservices around the principles of functional programming and library\
 noperating systems.\n\nHypervisors such as Xen provide a flexible platform
  to host applications\nas a set of appliances\, e.g.\, web servers or data
 bases. Each appliance\nusually contains an OS kernel and userspace process
 es\, within which\napplications access resources via APIs such as POSIX. T
 he flexibility\ncomes at a cost: the addition of another layer in the alre
 ady complex\nsoftware stack that reduces performance and increases the siz
 e of the\ntrusted computing base.\n\nMirageOS proposes a radically differe
 nt way of building these appliances\nby breaking up conventional OS librar
 ies into a set of structured\,\nreusable modules. Mirage supports the prog
 ressive specialisation of\nfunctional language (OCaml) application source 
 code\, and gradually\nreplaces traditional OS components with type-safe li
 braries. This\nultimately results in small\, sealed\, fixed-purpose images
  that run\ndirectly on the hypervisor without an intervening guest OS such
  as Linux.\n\nDevelopers no longer need to become sysadmins\, expert in th
 e configuration\nof all manner of system components\, to use cloud resourc
 es. At the same\ntime\, they can develop their code using their usual comp
 iler tools\, and\nsimply recompile into specialized kernels when ready.  T
 he deployed\nkernels are also highly compact: facilities that are not used
  are simply\nnot included. For example\, the self-hosting Mirage web serve
 r image is\nless than a megabyte in size!\n\nMirageOS 1.0 is due for a fir
 st public release on Dec 9th\, so this talk\nwill be presented using Mirag
 eOS itself to host the slides.
LOCATION:Lecture Theatre 1\, Computer Laboratory
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