THE ALTA OPERATING SYSTEM
Patrick Tullmann, Frank J. Lepreau, Wilson C. Hsieh, John B. Carter, Robert R. Kessler, David S. Chapman · 2003
Many modern systems, including web servers, database engines, and operating system kernels, are using language-based protection mechanisms to provide the safety and integrity traditionally supplied by hardware. As these language-based systems become used in more demanding situations, they are faced with the same problems that traditional operating systems have solved|namely shared resource management, process separation, and per-process resource accounting. While many incremental changes to language-based, extensible systems have been proposed, this thesis demonstrates that comprehensive solutions used in traditional operating systems are applicable and appropriate. This thesis describes Alta, an implementation of the Fluke operating system's nested process model in a Java virtual machine. The nested process model is a hierarchical operating system process model designed to provide a consistent approach to user-level, per-process resource accounting and control. This model accounts fo...