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A Multi-Platform, Multi-Purpose Research Hypervisor

1. Maintainers

   Current work on Research Hypervisor is targets two Instruction Set
   Architectures (ISA). The core maintainers consist of the
   individuals responsible for a particular ISA. Those individuals are
   currently:

    1. Overall and PowerPC. Jimi Xenidis <[email protected]>.
    2. Intel and AMD Architecture (x86). Leendert Van Doorn, 
       <[email protected]>.
     _________________________________________________________________

2. What is the Research Hypervisor?

   Virtual machines have been around for decades, creating an environment
   by which several Operating Systems can coexist on a single machine
   while maintain the security and isolation of a multiple machine
   scenario. Much of the technology has been pioneered by IBM(TM) in our
   zSeries(TM) and more recently in our pSeries(TM) and iSeries(TM)
   offerings. Normally the domain of "Big Iron" and large data centers,
   Hypervisors have enjoyed a recent resurgence in interest due to the
   availability of powerful commodity hardware and the vast amount of
   operating system research made possible by the recent open source
   movement.

   The Research Hypervisor Project is a software base designed
   specifically to perform and support Hypervisor Research and push
   the boundaries of all aspects of virtualizing a machine. Different
   ISAs have different degrees of maturity, but our commitment to
   broad support, rapid progress and friendly competition have created
   an energetic environment and some pretty cool results.
     _________________________________________________________________

3. Project goals

    1. Multi-Platform. The Research Hypervisor Project currently
       supports PowerPC and x86 processors and targets various
       processor implementations that may or may not have Hypervisor
       capabilities designed into the architecture.

    2. Multi-Purpose. The Project is designed to be feature rich in
       that a specific build can support varying degrees of system
       virtualization, in terms of IO partitioning, IO virtualization,
       Multi-processor Multi-threaded virtualization, Security, RAS,
       migration, and more.

    3. Compact Size and Modularity. The size and function of the core
       Hypervisor in the Research Hypervisor is a major concern to the
       project leaders. We are committed to creating a modular design
       that will allow for new features to be added to the core
       functionality in order to preserve Hypervisor integrity and
       allow for independent innovation and research.

    4. More to come. ...
     _________________________________________________________________

4. Getting Started

   See the INSTALL file in this directory, there is also plenty of
   useful information in the ./docs directory.

5. Check it out!

   We invite all of the Open Source Comminity to try the Research
   Hypervisor and discuss its design and implimentation. Please keep
   an eye out for our comming webpage at:
     http://www.research.ibm.com/Hypervisor

   Other Resources:

     * Hacker's Guide. Can be build like all other documentation, a
       recent snap shot can be found in:
          docs/00HackersGuide.html

     * API Document. Is in the fila stages of review and will be
       released shortly

     * IRC on irc.freenode.net, channel name is #rhype. For those
       interested in a more "free form" discussion.

     * Mailing lists. Are being created as we speak.. stay tuned!


Jimi Xenidis <[email protected]>