Statusvortrag von Herrn Dipl.-Inf. Till Miemietz

Abstract: 
Digital services are increasingly hosted by dedicated companies (also known as 
cloud providers), instead of running locally with the end user. Currently, the 
operating systems used for driving server-grade hardware in cloud data centers 
follow a monolithic approach. While offering good performance, monolithic 
operating systems expose a large attack surface as they implement many OS 
features in the kernel. Microkernel-based operating systems instead offer a much 
more secure architecture by design. However, such systems are often optimized to 
run on small computing platforms. Hence, when used to drive server hardware, 
microkernel systems face deficits, particularly from a performance perspective. 

Starting with a presentation of existing work on hardening operating systems 
used in cloud settings, this talk discusses the challenges and opportunities 
of deploying microkernels in cloud environments, using the design of container 
engines as an example. The talk furthermore gives insight into approaches for 
deploying microkernel-based systems on server hardware. It concludes with a 
short description of our efforts on increasing the scalability of L4Re, a 
microkernel-based operating system developed at TU Dresden. 

Betreuer: Prof. Hermann Härtig
Fachreferent: Prof. Wolfgang Lehner