Hypervisors in Embedded Systems: Applications and Architectures

Credits: Embedded World Conference 2018, ISBN 978-3-645-50173-6, http://www.embedded-world.eu

Abstract — As microprocessor architectures have evolved with direct hardware support for virtualization, hypervisor software has become not just practical in embedded systems, but present in many commercials applications. This paper discusses embedded systems use cases for hypervisors, including their use in workload consolidation and security applications.

Introduction

Hypervisors are a type of operating system software that allows multiple traditional operating systems to run on the same microprocessor [1]. They were originally introduced in traditional IT data centers to solve workload balancing and system utilization challenges. Initial hypervisors required changes to the guest OS to compensate for a lack of hardware support for the isolation required between guest operating systems. As microprocessor architectures have evolved with direct hardware support for virtualization, hypervisors have become not just practical in embedded systems, but are present in deployed applications [2]. Hypervisors are here to stay in embedded systems. This paper discusses embedded systems use cases for hypervisors, including their use in workload consolidation and security applications.

Read more of this post