A Framework for Migrating Process State in a Heterogeneous Environment

Abstract

Process migration presents many technical challenges. A significant issue is how to exchange the state of a process in preparation for process migration. Allowing process migration to occur in a heterogeneous environment adds more complications. A sampling of the challenges includes different number of registers on the CPUs, different priority schemes on the two operating systems, and different methods for representing data. This paper proposes a framework to migrate a process state within a heterogeneous environment - the first step in supporting process migration. The framework pulls together research on various process migration topics, and provides an initial road map for researchers to follow in pursuit of a complete process migration strategy. The framework describes a virtual machine environment that addresses communication between the source and target computers, provides for an agreement to do migration, and describes a checkpoint/restart approach for saving and restoring process state information within a heterogeneous environment. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research.

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Last updated on July 29, 2003.