The Virtual Open Systems video demos to virtualize ARM multicore platforms

GPUs, Accelerators, DSPs API Remoting KVM ARM Virtualization

Host resources virtualization at hardware level requires significant development effort. Instead, hardware virtualization at the API level (also known as API remoting) can be a viable solution in many use cases. It's easier to implement, as it doesn't require any modification to the underlined hardware or to the device drivers. Examples of hardware resources that can be virtualized using API remoting are: GP/GPUs, multicore accelerators (OpenGL, OpenMAX, OpenCL, CUDA, etc.), DSPs and TPM solutions. This video demonstration shows a Proof of Concept (PoC) of an API remoting software solution designed by Virtual Open Systems. A first implementation of the OpenGL library virtualization is showcased, with the objectives to prove the feasibility of an API remoting implementation, which can be extended beyond OpenGL, and to support user interaction activity from within the guest. The Virtual Open Systems API remoting solution consists of the following software components:

• vosyshmem, the zero-copy shared memory mechanism developed by Virtual Open Systems
• A back-end program executed in the host that manages the concurrency and interacts with the real hardware through the host driver
• A front-end program, which runs in the guest and gathers requests from the guest applications and forwards it to the back-end through vosyshmem

Namely, this video demo showcases the implementation of Virtual Open Systems' OpenGL API virtualization on a Samsung ARM Chromebook. The application executed in the host renders a cube in a frame buffer shared with the guest. The virtual machine is able to directly access this shared memory area through vosyshmem, the zero copy shared memory mechanism that offers near native performance. The user from within the guest is able to start the rendering and to control the rotation of the cube using the keyboard.