Modular Real-Time Resource Management in the Rialto Operating System

This paper describes ongoing investigations into algorithms for modular distributed real-time resource management. These investigations are being conducted in the context of the Rialto operating system-an object-based real-time kernel and programming environment currently being developed within Microsoft Research. Some of the goals of this research include developing appropriate real-time programming abstractions to allow multiple independent real-time programs to dynamically coexist and share resources on the same hardware platforms. Use of these abstractions is intended both to allow individual applications to reason about their own resource requirements and for per-machine system resource planner applications to reason about and control resource allocations between potentially competing applications. The set of resources being managed is dynamically extensible, and may include remote resources in distributed environments. The local planner conducts resource negotiations with individual applications on behalf of the user, with the goal of maximizing the user’s perceived utility of the set of running applications with respect to resource allocations for those applications.