eMCOS® Hypervisor by eSOL: new virtualization function to eMCOS scalable RTOS

eSOL, a leading global specialist in embedded software systems, announced the immediate availability of its eMCOS® Hypervisor, a ground-breaking embedded virtualization function for the company’s eMCOS scalable real-time operating system (RTOS). eMCOS Hypervisor facilitates the integration of both robust real-time applications on RTOS and feature-rich applications on general-purpose OS – running concurrently on a single hardware platform. Full time and space isolation is provided for each mixed-criticality system.

In terms of architecture, the addition of virtualization to the eMCOS RTOS brings even greater flexibility in mixed-criticality system configuration, making it possible to incorporate general-purpose operating systems like Linux or Android without compromising real-time capabilities and safety.

Among many notable advantages, users can leverage eMCOS’s advanced scheduling capabilities. As eMCOS Hypervisor is implemented by incorporating a mechanism for virtualization into eMCOS POSIX, users can enjoy scheduling features such as load-balancing and time separation, on the same hardware platform as a guest OS.

A further major benefit is the ease of customization relating to the boot sequence of a general-purpose OS. As guest operating systems are started as eMCOS POSIX processes, the boot sequence can be implemented simply as a process start, and is easily customized as sequential start-up and multi-core parallel start-up. The deployment of multiple guest operating systems is performed in a coordinated, optionally load-balanced manner, without impacting the determinism of real-time or safety functions.

Also appealing to users will be the easy porting of drivers. Linux standard Virtio drivers are supported, making it easy to port Linux guests. In addition, drivers that are tightly coupled to the SoC can be ported with ease because the Virtual Machine Monitor (VMM) can filter or passthrough hardware accesses.

Another important point is the robustness of eMCOS Hypervisor against malfunctions and malicious software. The system is designed to minimize and optimize the virtualization mechanism in the more privileged hypervisor and kernel space and perform most processing in the VMM placed in the user space. As a result, abnormalities in the guest OS and virtual machine do not cause catastrophic failures that lead to a system-wide crash.

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