The role of virtualization in embedded systems

TLDR

System virtualization, popular in enterprise and personal computing, is gaining interest in embedded systems. The authors compare enterprise and embedded systems to investigate the differing motivations for employing system virtual machines. They analyze how these motivations translate into distinct technology requirements. The study concludes that virtualization alone cannot satisfy embedded systems’ special requirements, and that high‑performance microkernels such as L4, which support virtualization as a special case, are better suited for next‑generation embedded systems.

Abstract

System virtualization, which enjoys immense popularity in the enterprise and personal computing spaces, is recently gaining significant interest in the embedded domain. Starting from a comparison of key characteristics of enterprise systems and embedded systems, we will examine the difference in motivation for the use of system virtual machines, and the resulting differences in the requirements for the technology. We find that these differences are quite substantial, and that virtualization is unable to meet the special requirements of embedded systems. Instead, more general operating-systems technologies are required, which support virtualization as a special case. We argue that high-performance microkernels, specifically L4, are a technology that provides a good match for the requirements of next-generation embedded systems.