AV ftp ftp.cs.city.ac.uk:paperswaferscalewafermem.ps.Z
AV EurOpen Autumn '91 Conference Proceedings
GP waferscale
MN September
YR 1991
PA 18
PL Budapest

TI Evaluating MESHIX---A UNIX compatible Micro-Kernel Operating System

AU Nick Williams

AU Tim Wilkinson

AU Andy Whitcroft

AU Peter Osmon

RT conference paper

AV ftp ftp.cs.city.ac.uk:papersmeshixevaluatingpaper.ps

OR CITY

AB A number of current operating systems have been implemented
using the micro-kernel approach, which moves functionality from
the kernel to user-level servers. MESHIX is a System V UNIX
compatible message-passing distributed operating system
implemented using this approach. In this paper we evaluate some
of the design choices taken in MESHIX, partiin MESHIX,
particularly aspects associated with the mexamine the overhead
associated with the micro-kernel we analyse local RPC performance
and message-delivery, and give timings for the constituent parts
of these operations. We conclude that although MESHIX has similar
performance to other micro-kernel systems, a significant penalty
is paid for the micro-kernel and propose specific optimisations
to reduce this penalty.