General data streaming

This work presents a new I/O system design and implementation targeted at applications that perform data streaming. The approach yields true zero-copy transfers between I/O devices in many instances. We give a general characterization of I/O elements and provide a framework that allows analysis of the potential for zero-copy transfers. Finally, we describe the design, implementation, and performance of a prototype I/O system in a real time, embeddable, 32-bit operating system whose design is based on the presented analysis to minimize data copying