Title: TransOS: a transparent computing-based operating system for the cloud

Authors: Yaoxue Zhang; Yuezhi Zhou

Addresses: Key Laboratory of Pervasive Computing, Ministry of Education, Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology, Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China. ' Key Laboratory of Pervasive Computing, Ministry of Education, Tsinghua National Laboratory for Information Science and Technology, Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

Abstract: Cloud computing has become a hot topic recently. Among these research issues, cloud operating systems have attracted extensive attention. However, to date, there is no answer to such issues as what a cloud operating system is and how to develop one. This paper proposes a cloud operating system, TransOS, from the viewpoint of transparent computing, in which all traditional operating system codes and applications are centrally stored on network servers, and an almost bare terminal dynamically schedules the necessary codes selected by users from the network server, and runs them mostly with the terminal's local resources. The TransOS manages all the resources to provide integrated services for users, including traditional operating systems. This paper first introduces the concept of transparent computing as a background and presents TransOS and its main characteristics. It then gives a layered structure-based designation of TransOS and finally illustrates one example of its implementation.

Keywords: transparent computing; cloud operating system; cloud computing.

DOI: 10.1504/IJCC.2012.049763

International Journal of Cloud Computing, 2012 Vol.1 No.4, pp.287 - 301

Published online: 16 Aug 2014 *

Full-text access for editors Access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article