Virtual Execution Environments: Support and Tools

In today´s dynamic computing environments, the available resources and even underlying computation engine can change during the execution of a program. Additionally, current trends in software development favor the flexibility and cost-effectiveness of dynamically loaded components and libraries. Because of these trends, there has been increased research interest in virtual execution environments (VEEs) for delivering adaptable software suitable for today´s rapidly changing, heterogeneous computing environments. In this project, we have been investigating tools and techniques to support implementation of VEEs using software dynamic translation (SDT). This paper highlights some of our recent results. One significant result is that we have developed novel translation techniques that reduce the memory and runtime overhead of SDT to negligible levels. We have also developed innovative debugging and instrumentation tools for SDT-based software environments. Together, these results make SDT-based systems viable for solving a wide range of pressing problems. The paper concludes with a discussion of how SDT may offer a solution to one such problem-inherent process variation in emerging chip multiprocessors.