Abstract
How does one build a truly dependable software system? Seven years ago, Microsoft Research started the Singularity project to answer this question. The premise was to start with the best known software development tools and to build a new kind of operating system from the ground up. The operating system was to be both an output artifact and a laboratory for the research. Portions of the code and ideas have been incorporated into three separate Microsoft operating systems so far. I will give a brief overview of Singularity planned and built, then describe what we learned, both positive and negative. I will speculate on OS futures including current research to build an operating system in which every last assembly instruction has been verified for type safety, a system for truly mobile computation, and new tools for automatically restructuring large software systems.
Index Terms
Looking beyond a singularity
Recommendations
Singularity: rethinking the software stack
Systems work at Microsoft ResearchEvery operating system embodies a collection of design decisions. Many of the decisions behind today's most popular operating systems have remained unchanged, even as hardware and software have evolved. Operating systems form the foundation of almost ...
Looking beyond a singularity
VEE '10: Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGPLAN/SIGOPS international conference on Virtual execution environmentsHow does one build a truly dependable software system? Seven years ago, Microsoft Research started the Singularity project to answer this question. The premise was to start with the best known software development tools and to build a new kind of ...







Comments