Re: Unikernel / Ada

[Volkert <volkert@komponentenwerkstatt.de>]

A short quote from "Unikernels Beyond Containers to the Next Generation of Cloud-" Russell Pavlicek

"Unikernels promise small, secure, fast workloads, and people
are beginning to see that this new technology could help launch a
new phase in cloud computing. To put it simply, unikernels apply 
the established techniques of embedded programming to the datacenter."

BW,
Volkert


On Wednesday, March 1, 2017 at 10:20:13 PM UTC+1, Randy Brukardt wrote:
> That sort of thing was done a lot, especially in the early days of Ada.
> 
> Rational, for instance, had a bare-machine version of their compiler (the 
> executable ran directly on the hardware with no outside kernel).
> 
> Indeed, all of the MS-DOS compilers could have been considered the same, as 
> MS-DOS didn't provide much other than I/O support. Everything else (tasking, 
> exceptions, storage pools, etc.) was in the Ada runtime. We used to sell an 
> embedded kit that included the runtime source and tools for tailoring it to 
> run in a bare machine environment.
> 
> For the most part, those things have disappeared, because of lack of demand. 
> That's probably because modern software needs so much more I/O (you can't 
> live with just an RS232 serial connection anymore) that some sort of I/O 
> kernel is needed at a minimum. (I don't think I would want to start writing 
> TCP/IP socket stacks :-). And with the rise of multi-core systems, CPU setup 
> and management is gotten pretty hairy as well. That drives customers to 
> using that kernel for everything.
> 
> My personal tendency is to use the target system for as little as possible 
> (I don't have to trust -- or understand -- things I don't use!), but my 
> understanding is (a) I'm unusual, and (b) I don't have customer pressure to 
> do otherwise. The (b) factor is surely the most important, and that could 
> change at any time.
> 
> Using Xen as the kernel is an interesting idea, but of course it changes it 
> from a "hypervisor" to "just another kernel" which is running programs 
> packaged individually. It's almost a full circle (and doesn't surprise me, 
> because people are always trying to get rid of layers, and there aren't many 
> new ideas out there).
> 
>                                     Randy.
> 
> <volkert@komponentenwerkstatt.de> wrote in message 
> news:7023af9f-7429-448d-b290-03e0c32772f7@googlegroups.com...
> Some time ago read some Papers on the MirageOS (https://mirage.io/), a 
> library operating system. The model works in short (simplified): The 
> application sources  (in case of Mirage in OCaml) are compiled / linked 
> together with all its depending "library os" sources into one fully 
> standalone binary (unikernal). This  binary is then deployed directly f.e. 
> on a Xen Hypervisor. No complex OS involved. small, efficient, more secure, 
> fast to boot,
> 
> https://mirage.io/wiki/overview-of-mirage
> 
> I find this model interesting for GNAT. Maybe there are already some ideas 
> around?
> 
> Volkert