Co-Designing Cloud Database Systems And Operating System Kernels

The cloud and the database-as-a-service model make custom OS kernels realistic for the first time. Among specialized OS kernel architectures, unikernels stand out for relying on a single address space, eliminating the need for costly process isolation that is provided by general-purpose operating systems. They offer benefits such as the elimination of system call overhead, direct access to hardware, and reduced complexity. Beyond these immediate advantages, unikernels offer a unique opportunity: the possibility to revisit dated POSIX APIs. By allowing direct interaction with modern hardware primitives, unikernels pave the way for the development of novel abstractions that are not confined to the limitations of older APIs, opening doors to a new era of co-designed, high-performance cloud-native data processing systems and OS kernels.

Publications

Venue Publication

Link

VLDB 2024 Cloud-Native Database Systems and Unikernels: Reimagining OS Abstractions for Modern Hardware
Viktor Leis, Christian Dietrich

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SIGMOD 2023 Virtual-Memory Assisted Buffer Management
Viktor Leis, Adnan Alhomssi, Tobias Ziegler, Yannick Loeck, Christian Dietrich
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CIDR 2022 Are You Sure You Want to Use MMAP in Your Database Management System?
Andrew Crotty, Viktor Leis, Andrew Pavlo

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