A Bare-Metal and Asymmetric Partitioning Approach to Client Virtualization

Advancements in cloud computing enable the easy deployment of numerous services. However, the analysis of cloud service access platforms from a client perspective shows that maintaining and managing clients remain a challenge for end users. In this paper, we present the design, implementation, and evaluation of an asymmetric virtual machine monitor (AVMM), which is an asymmetric partitioning-based bare-metal approach that achieves near-native performance while supporting a new out-of-operating system mechanism for value-added services. To achieve these goals, AVMM divides underlying platforms into two asymmetric partitions: a user partition and a service partition. The user partition runs a commodity user OS, which is assigned to most of the underlying resources, maintaining end-user experience. The service partition runs a specialized OS, which consumes only the needed resources for its tasks and provides enhanced features to the user OS. AVMM considerably reduces virtualization overhead through two approaches: 1) Peripheral devices, such as graphics equipment, are assigned to be monopolized by a single user OS. 2) Efficient resource management mechanisms are leveraged to alleviate complicated resource sharing in existing virtualization technologies. We implement a prototype that supports Windows and Linux systems. Experimental results show that AVMM is a feasible and efficient approach to client virtualization.