School of Computer Science and Engineering
University of New South Wales
Sydney 2052 Australia
National ICT Australia, Sydney,
Australia
In this paper, we question whether hypervisors are reall acting as a disruptive force in OS research, instead argu ing that they have so far changed very little at a techni cal level. Essentially, we have retained the conventiona Unix-like OS interface and added a new ABI based on PC hardware which is highly unsuitable for most purposes Despite commercial excitement, focus on hypervisor de sign may be leading OS research astray. However, adopt ing a different approach to virtualization and recognizin its value to academic research holds the prospect of open ing up kernel research to new directions.