A Quantitative Analysis of Aspects in the eCOS Kernel

Lohmann D, Scheler F, Tartler R, Spinczyk O, Schröder-Preikschat W (2006)

Publication Type: Conference contribution

Publication year: 2006

Publisher: ACM Press

Edited Volumes: Proceedings of the 2006 EuroSys Conference

City/Town: Belgium

Pages Range: 191-204

Conference Proceedings Title: Proceedings of the EuroSys 2006 Conference

Event location: Leuven, Belgium BE

ISBN: 1-59593-322-0

URI: http://www4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/~lohmann/download/EuroSys06_Lohmann.pdf

DOI: 10.1145/1217935.1217954

Abstract

Nearly ten years after its first presentation and five years after its first application to operating systems, the suitability of Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) for the development of operating system kernels is still highly in dispute. While the AOP advocacy emphasizes the benefits of AOP towards better configurability and maintainability of system software, most kernel developers express a sound skepticism regarding the thereby induced runtime and memory costs: Operating system kernels have to be lean and efficient.We have analyzed the runtime and memory costs of aspects in general, on the level of μ-benchmarks, and by refactoring and extending the eCos operating system kernel using AspectC++, an AOP extension to the C++ language. Our results show that most AOP features do not induce a intrinsic overhead and that the actual overhead induced by AspectC++ is very low. We have also analyzed a test case with significant aspect-related costs. This example shows how the structure of the underlying kernel can have a negative impact on aspect implementations and how these costs can be avoided by an aspect-aware design.Based on this analysis, our conclusion is that AOP is suitable for the development of operating system kernels and other kinds of highly efficient infrastructure software.

Authors with CRIS profile

Daniel Lohmann Lehrstuhl für Informatik 4 (Verteilte Systeme und Betriebssysteme) Fabian Scheler Lehrstuhl für Informatik 4 (Verteilte Systeme und Betriebssysteme) Reinhard Tartler Lehrstuhl für Informatik 4 (Verteilte Systeme und Betriebssysteme) Wolfgang Schröder-Preikschat Lehrstuhl für Informatik 4 (Verteilte Systeme und Betriebssysteme)

How to cite

APA:

Lohmann, D., Scheler, F., Tartler, R., Spinczyk, O., & Schröder-Preikschat, W. (2006). A Quantitative Analysis of Aspects in the eCOS Kernel. In Proceedings of the EuroSys 2006 Conference (pp. 191-204). Leuven, Belgium, BE: Belgium: ACM Press.

MLA:

Lohmann, Daniel, et al. "A Quantitative Analysis of Aspects in the eCOS Kernel." Proceedings of the EuroSys 2006, Leuven, Belgium Belgium: ACM Press, 2006. 191-204.

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