Designing a process migration facility: the Charlotte experience

Experience with process migration in the Charlotte distributed operating system is discussed. Charlotte´s migration facility is a fairly elaborate addition to the underlying kernel and utility-process base. It separates policy from mechanism. An overview is given of Charlotte, its process migration facility, and issues encountered that have a general application for any such facility. In the discussion of each issue, alternative design approaches adopted by other process migration facilities are presented. This account is intended to help researchers contemplating the addition of a process migration facility as well as those designing other operating system facilities that might need to interact later with added process migration facilities.<>