Ada real-time services and virtualization

Virtualization techniques have received increased attention in the field of embedded real-time systems. Such techniques provide a set of virtual machines that run on a single hardware platform, thus allowing several application programs to be executed as though they were running on separate machines, with isolated memory spaces and a fraction of the real processor time available to each of them.This papers deals with some problems that arise when implementing real-time systems written in Ada on a virtual machine. The effects of virtualization on the performance of the Ada real-time services are analysed, and requirements for the virtualization layer are derived. Virtual-machine time services are also defined in order to properly support Ada real-time applications. The implementation of the ORK+ kernel on the XtratuM supervisor is used as an example

Extortion in the United Kingdom

Extortion racketeering has been long pointed out as the “defining activity of organised crime” (Konrad & Skaperdas, 1998). Although in recent years this crime has not been among the top listed organised crime threats in the strategic EU policy documents, it still remains ever present in European countries. The seriousness of the phenomenon has been recognised at the EU level and the crime has been listed in a number of EU legal acts in the field of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. In this section of the report, Dr Bonino discusses the legal status of extortion in the UK and the specifics of organised crime in that country

PaRTiKle OS, a replacement for the core of RTLinux-GPL

RTLinux-GPL 1 is an RTOS which uses a dual-kernel approach, that is, executing a real-time kernel (RTLinux-GPL itself) jointly with a general purpose OS (Linux). By using this approach, complex real-time application with both, hard and soft real-time requirements can be implemented easier. However, the core of RTLinux-GPL is getting bloated and hard to maintain, with several out-of-date and not-working features. Moreover it’s future is unclear regarding the adquisition of the RTLinux-GPL patent by Wind River. This facts forced us to consider either to reengage its code or to start a new kernel from scratch to replace it. Although the first option seems to be more suitable, since RTLinux-GPL is a mature and stable code, important design flaws (specifically, problems when a RTLinux-GPL application deals with signals and system calls) has headed us towards the second one. In this paper we present this new core, called PaRTiKle, which is intended to be downward compatible with existing RTLinux-GPL applications.

IO Virtualisation in a Partitioned System

International audiencePartitioned systems permit to isolate in partitions several applications with different security levels and/or crit-icality. Hypervisor technology provides virtual machines to execute partitions under two basic principles: space and time isolation. This view is complemented with the "dedicated devices" technique that assigns devices exclusively to a partition. However in case of shared devices a partition has to provide a device or IO virtualisation to the other partitions, referred as the "I/O Server" approach. We present a solution for device virtualisation on the XtratuM hypervisor which has been specifically designed for critical embedded systems. The approach is in the scope of the Open Secure Vehicular Platform project. Such system will support different types of partitions, from real time constrained to non-trusted user partitions running general purpose operating systems