Notes on System Software, BIOS, Virtualization

Article: Intel decides Pentiums are good enough for servers too, at least the low-end ones

2011-11-24T07:40:00.001-08:00

You can't make micro servers out of them ... But may be a mini server.

Intel decides Pentiums are good enough for servers too, at least the low-end ones
http://www.engadget.com/2011/11/24/intel-decides-pentiums-are-good-enough-for-servers-too-at-least

- Dima

Intel Invests in Insyde Software

2011-11-22T17:57:00.001-08:00

Intel Capital invests in (keeping alive?) Inside Software, a BIOS vendor focused on the UEFI based BIOS.

Investment is around $10 million.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/insyde-software-announces-latest-investment-by-intelcapital-2011-11-22

Phoenix Technologies Buys General Software

2008-07-24T07:39:00.000-07:00

Phoenix Technologies is buying General Software, who's BIOS is mostly used for the embedded applications.

Article in PC Wire: Link

Phoenix announces an actual application of HyperCore

2008-03-24T21:43:00.000-07:00

Phoenix Technologies partners with CyberLink to deliver an application for the HyperCore, Phoenix's BIOS based hypervisor. It "will allow people to see videos or play music or other multimedia content within seconds of turning on their laptop".

CyberLink Products

This is one of the first few use cases of HyperCore is actually getting implemented.

Article in PC Magazine

Phoenix may have influenced Windows Vista Virtualization

2008-03-16T14:17:00.000-07:00

Apparently, a complaint that involved Phoenix Technologies and their HyperSpace and Hyper Core products that aim to virtualize at the BIOS level, caused Microsoft to allow running Microsoft Vista as a guest OS.

The issue was only in the End User License Agreement, not with OS itself.

"In January 2008, Microsoft needed only to modify the EULA to implement the changes; there had never been a technical barrier to virtualizing either version of Windows.

"The complaint concerned a restriction in Microsoft's Vista EULA, which purported, for less expensive versions of Vista (Home Basic and Home Premium), to bar the user from running those versions of Windows on virtualization software"

"Phoenix, which had recently announced a virtualization product, complained that Microsoft's EULA restrictions would deter OEMs from including its product on new PCs and also deter consumers from using virtualization software made by Phoenix and other companies"

Vista virtualization rules relaxed to quash antitrust probes

Phoenix HyperCore and SupportSoft integration

2008-03-16T14:08:00.000-07:00

Phoenix Technologies and SupportSoft announced integration of the HyperCore (Phoenix's virtualization environment that allows running a parallel OS) and SupportSoft agent.

No particulars on how the solution will work, only general statements about managing and maintaining user OS. The claim is that HyperCore and SuperSoft's agent will enable PC diagnostics and repair when user OS crashes.

Phoenix Technologies and SupportSoft Team to Develop Breakthrough in Remote PC Management and User Continuity via HyperSpace(TM)

ASPLOS ( Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems)

2008-01-30T15:23:00.000-08:00

Thirteenth International Conference on Architectural Support for Programming Languages and Operating Systems.

http://research.microsoft.com/asplos08/registration.htm

March 1-5, 2008 in Seattle, WA

By February 11th - $585
February 12th - 28th - $675
On Site - $700

Architecture of the Windows Vista Kernel (tutorial)
Memory System Performance and Correctness 2008 (workshop)
Does multicore change the way we should design caches? (tutorial)
Research Accelerator for Multiprocessors (tutorial)
Using the Singularity Research Development Kit (tutorial)
Hands-On Pin for Architecture, Operating Systems, and Program Analysis Research (tutorial)
Using the M5 Simulator (tutorial)
NVidia GPU programming (tutorial)
Learning and Inference Tutorial (LIT) for Large Design and Parameter Spaces (tutorial)

Dilbert goes BIOS

2008-01-29T16:44:00.000-08:00

Click to see larger image

1.6TB Solid State Disks - BitMicro

2007-11-18T21:43:00.000-08:00

BitMicro announced a new solid state disk, an "E-Disk Altima"

Capacity 16GB - 1.6TB
4Gb FC
Sampling Q1-2008
Shipping volume Q2-2008
230MB/s, 55,000 I/O (I think this is comparable to other solid state disks)

Company news release, November 12th, 2007
Company news release, November 13th 2007 (Supercomputing, Reno, Nevada)

Hitachi jumps on the "Hypervisor in our firmware" bandwagon

2007-11-08T18:53:00.000-08:00

It seems like the trend continues. Here's an article about Hitachi's offering of their firmware based hypervisor on the Xeon platform.

“ASIC coupled with embedded firmware”.

“Other attempts to embed virtualization within a server don't do so in hardware. In September, XenSource Inc. announced an embedded virtualization platform called XenExpress that integrates into servers via flash or on the hard disk. Similarly, VMware's ESX Server 3i fits on 32 MB of flash memory.”

“Virtage can partition physical server resources by building multiple isolated logical partitions (up to 16 partitions per server module) capable of running independently and supporting independent operating environments on each logical partition. It also provides a secure environment for each virtual machine and fault isolation through hardware boundaries.”

“BladeSymphony's SMP interconnect backplane supports two-socket Itanium processor blades that can be scaled up and/or out for up to two eight-socket (or 16-way) servers in a single chassis or eight two-socket (or four-way) servers.”

Hitachi blades virtualize without VMware

Reason for EFI boot?

2007-11-06T10:00:00.000-08:00

Is this one of the killer apps for the EFI boot?

Today (with the Legacy BIOS) - you can only create an up to a 2TB partition. While this sounds like a fairly large partition size, think of the size of the storage devices on our desktops. Drives of 1/2 TB are commonplace. The storage demand in the datacenter is far greater. Seems that there is support in Linux for the GUID Partition Tables (GPT).

Blog - Linux Creating a Partition Size Larger than 2TB
FYI - GUID partition table
Microsoft Article - How Basic Disks and Volumes Work

Phoenix BOIS Hypervisor

2007-11-05T00:02:00.000-08:00

Several sources discuss a Hypervisor offering from Phoenix Technologies:

1. Phoenix - Investor Presentation
2. EEtimes Article - Phoenix Rolls Environment for PC Apps
3. Computerworld - Is the move encroaching on Microsoft?
3. Blog - The Battle for the Hypervisor Heats Up
4. Blog - BIOS Maker Reinvents Itself as Virtualization Platform Vendor
5. WSJ Article - Making Laptops Work Better

A related, and possibly competing (?) project is called "Blue Pill". This is based on the research done by Joanna Rutkowska of the Invisible Things.

I'm not sure if Phoenix has looked into the copyright or trademark issues with respect to name HyperCore. A company called Plurality is developing a CPU architecture called "Hypercore Processor".

Windows Vista SP1 - Feautre White Paper

2007-08-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

From the Windows Blog Website (Link)

Quality improvements including all previously released updates, which address reliability, security, and performance

Improvements to the administration experience, including BitLocker^TM Drive Encryption (BDE)

Support for emerging hardware and standards, such as an Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) and an Extended File Allocation Table (exFAT).

AMD Manuals, Dev Guides

2007-08-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

AMD's collection of the programmers manuals, developer guides, etc.

http://developer.amd.com/devguides.jsp

Intel Processor Manuals

2007-06-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

All of the Intel Manuals in one place:

Intel® 64 and IA-32 Architectures Software Developer's Manuals

TLBs, Paging-Structure Caches, and Their Invalidation
Volume 1: Basic Architecture
Volume 2A, 2B : Instruction Set Reference
Volume 3A, 3B: System Programming Guide
Optimization Reference Manual

One Man's Thoughts on EFI

2007-06-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

This article has some interesting perspective on why a move to EFI is good thing.

You can skip the first four paragraphs about LEGO and a futuristic village.

D-EFI-nitely Maybe

EFI Webcast Insysde SW and Intel

2007-06-06T18:49:00.001-07:00

" ... will be leading a tutorial webcast in which Intel will be co-presenting."

"... explores BIOS development challenges in embedded systems and how “The Framework” helps overcome those challenges

When: 6/14/2007 02:00 PM EST
Where: Link to the webcast

Link to the news release

New search engines ... or are they?

2007-01-18T00:35:00.000-08:00

Interesting article in today's WSJ: "Search For Better Ways to Search". The article describes how the big search engine companies (Google, Yahoo, Ask.com and Microsoft) have deployed new search engine technologies, without tarnishing their names with possible acceptance issues or bugs.

Google: SearchMash.com. The big feature they are testing is a coexistence of multiple searches on the same page: photo, blog, videos and wikipedia.
Yahoo: Alltheweb.com.
Ask.com: AskX.com

And, the most fun, from Microsoft: MsDewey.com. This the most fun to check out. Ms. Dewey will entertain you while you are searching.

OS Courses From Berkley

2007-01-17T19:03:00.000-08:00

UC Berkley has some courses online. They offer a video feed and have some material that students use in the classroom.

CS 162 Operating Systems and Systems Programming (Fall 2006)

All of 2007 Courses. Semester has only started, so not much posted yet, but you can click on "Other Semesters" in the top right hand corner to see previous lectures.

- Dima

Papers on IBM eServer z900

2006-10-22T23:08:00.000-07:00

Discovereded this page on IBM's website. The papers were published in an issue of the "Journal of Research and Developemnt".

This particular issue is dedicated to architecture and design choices of the IBM eServer z900.

The range of topics is quite large: CPU, IO, system configuration, etc. 19 Articles.

Follow this link to download the papers.

- Development and attributes of z/Architecture
- The microarchitecture of the IBM eServer z900 processor
- First- and second-level packagi
- Self-timed interface of the input/output subsystem of the IBM eServer z900
- Coupling I/O channels for the IBM eServer z900: Reengineering required
- zSeries features for optimized sockets-based messaging: HiperSockets and OSA-Express
- FCP for the IBM eServer zSeries systems: Access to distributed storage
- RAS design for the IBM eServer z900
- System control structure of the IBM eServer z900
- Hardware configuration framework for the IBM eServer z900
- Flexible configuration and concurrent upgrade for the IBM eServer z900
- The alternate support element, a high-availability service console for the IBM eServer z900
- Intelligent Resource Director
- IBM eServer z900 system microcode verification by simulation: The virtual power-on process
- Hyper-acceleration and HW/SW co-verification as an essential part of IBM eServer z900 verification
- z/CECSIM: An efficient and comprehensive microcode simulator for the IBM eServer z900
- Hierarchical indexing data structure method for verifying the functionality of the STI-to-PCI bridge chips of the IBM eServer z900
- IBM eServer z900 high-frequency microprocessor technology, circuits, and design methodology

System Integration and Testing

2006-10-21T21:23:00.000-07:00

Some bookmarks on the topic of system integration and methods of integration testing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integration_testing

Configuring a server to run Microsoft Virtualization environment

2006-10-17T08:27:00.000-07:00

A good series of articles that will guide you through the neccessary steps to get from a bear HW to running guest operating systems (virtual environments) on your server.

1. Installing Microsoft Virtual Server 2005
- Virtual Server architecture
- Installing Virtual Server
- Connecting to the Virtual Server Administration Web site

2. Creating a Virtual Server Virtual Mashine
- Configuring Virtual Server settings
- Creating a new virtual machine

3. Configuring Virtual Networks
- Virtual Server's networking architecture
- Understanding virtual networks
- Creating virtual networks
- More Virtual Server networking features

And finally, the step that makes all of the about usefull:

4. Installing guest operating system
- Overview of guest OS installation
- Guest OS installation options
- Using the Virtual Mashine Remotecontrol Client (VMRC)
- Completing the OS installation

Very good website for Architecture Resources

2006-10-12T12:07:00.000-07:00

Came across this website that contains some very good papers on Software Arechitecture. I think the author of the website is writing a boog, which is partially available on the site as well.

http://www.bredemeyer.com/architect.htm

Inline assembly in Liux (x86)

2006-10-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

IBM wants to tell you how to write inline x86 assembly in Linux.

IBM on inline assebmly

Intel Developers Conference - EFI

2006-10-12T11:53:00.000-07:00

Participants of the IDF (Intel Developers Conference) received a healthy dose of the EFI updates. I don't have a summary of the event yet. Just a link to the presentations on Intel's website:

EFI @ IDF