IBM Announces Microkernel Research Agreements with Five Universities and
Research Institutes

AUSTIN, TX April 13, 1995 . . . The IBM Microkernel is playing an important
role in research groups at five leading universities and research
institutes. The University of Notre Dame, Carnegie Mellon University,
Oregon Graduate Institute and France's IRISA (University of Rennes) have
each entered into agreements with IBM to exploit the IBM Microkernel
technology for a variety of unique research projects. In addition, the
Open Software Foundation Research Institute is evaluating the IBM
Microkernel and providing feedback and consultation.

"The microkernel is an excellent platform for these institutions to use for
conducting research that will produce cutting edge technology in a variety
of fields," said Larry Loucks, IBM Fellow and vice president of software
architecture, IBM Personal Software Products. "In addition, the IBM
Microkernel technology will benefit from the extraordinary talents of
these research teams." Under the agreements announced today, each
university will utilize faculty as well as graduate and undergraduate
students in the research activities.

Open Software Foundation Research Institute

IBM recognized the value of research partnerships and under a research
agreement with the OSF Research Institute (RI), both IBM and the RI have
benefited from the focus and interaction by sharing expertise and
knowledge. This has enabled the RI to provide assistance and consultation
on architecture and design for various functional areas. The RI has also
provided IBM with kernel and server technology which IBM has continued to
enhance.

According to Dr. Ira Goldstein, OSF executive vice-president and chief
scientist, activities under the current agreement include a study of the
features of the IBM Microkernel and the development of an industrial
microkernel specification that incorporates the IBM Microkernel
interfaces.

The University of Notre Dame

Through the work of Professor David L. Cohn, the Computer Science and
Engineering department at the University of Notre Dame has already used
the IBM Microkernel in both its teaching and research programs. Last fall,
students in a graduate course in computer operating systems used a version
of the microkernel to experiment with interprocess communication
mechanisms, memory management tools and a prototype implementation of a
task migration facility using the interposition facility to permit
seamless task migration.

The IBM Microkernel is also the basis for a number of research projects at
Notre Dame's Distributed Computing Research Laboratory. It is the target
platform for Notre Dame's work on Protected Shared Libraries (PSL) to
develop a high-speed system service implementation technology that allows
individual clients to tailor service implementations. Other research
projects at Notre Dame that use the IBM Microkernel technology include a
study of communication subsystem architectures and a project involving the
marriage of PSL technology with the IBM SOM/DSOM object model on top of
the IBM Microkernel.

Carnegie Mellon University

The IBM Microkernel will play an important part in the school's Real-Time
Mach effort led by research scientist Dr. Raj Rajkumar. This effort is
part of the Advanced Real-Time Technology (ART) project, one of the
premier research groups in the world in the area of real-time systems. To
enhance the predictability and timeliness of real-time and multimedia
applications running on the microkernel, Carnegie Mellon University will
port and evaluate the real-time scheduling features in Real-Time Mach to
the IBM Microkernel.

Oregon Graduate Institute and IRISA (University of Rennes)

The Oregon Graduate Institute and the Institute for Research in Computer
Science and Random Systems (IRISA) at the University of Rennes are working
on a joint project to develop and validate the software technology needed
to support generic high-performance adaptive operating system software.
This technology is based on a systematic specialization of system
components. Specialization means customizing operating system components
critical for system performance by taking advantage of information as it
becomes available at compile, link, load, and/or run-time. The project
combines both programming language and operating system technology.

The group at IRISA, headed by Professor Charles Consel, focuses on the
design and implementation of a toolkit supporting specialization for the C
programming language. This work is driven by the research conducted at
Oregon Graduate Institute.

Oregon Graduate Institute's team, led by Professors Calton Pu and Jonathan
Walpole, will concentrate on the operating system aspects of the project,
aiming at systematically building efficient and modular operating system
kernels for the rapidly evolving hardware systems of today and tomorrow.
Oregon Graduate Institute's work uses tools developed at IRISA.

The IBM Microkernel technology is designed to manage and interpret
instructions between hardware and operating system services and
applications. The microkernel can be used in a wide range of products
including electronic games, industry controllers, automobiles, and
personal computers. IBM broadly licenses the microkernel technology and is
using it in future IBM products.

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