Interview with BI research group Composable Operating Systems
In this interview, the Composable Operating Systems research group at the Barkhausen Institut shares insights into its current work and research focus areas, with additional perspectives from individual group members.
"I am passionate about datacenter research due to its large-scale impact, cutting-edge technology, and the opportunity to collaborate with a brilliant team skilled in microkernels, security, and practical thinking – an experience offered by only a few places worldwide."
- Matthias Hille (Associate Researcher)
What is the research topic of your group?
The Composable Operating Systems group at BI works on improving the trustworthiness of digital devices ranging from small sensors to big server clusters. We improve security and safety of these systems by splitting their functionality into isolated components. Each component has one single task and communicates with other components to implement complex applications.
In which projects are you working currently?
We apply this principle to hardware architecture in the project M³, cloud infrastructure using the L4Re microkernel, and for Internet services using a technology called remote attestation.
“With remote attestation, a computer system can prove to us what software it runs and on what hardware. But to decide if this system is really trustworthy, we must be able to understand what its software can and cannot do, and if its hardware is really secure. I enjoy working with my colleagues at BI to find out how we can build hardware and software in such a way that we can verify all their components and therefore trust the computer to do its job as expected.”
- Carsen Weinhold (Associate Group Leader)
What is the connection between your research and everyday life? What problems and challenges are you trying to solve?
The phones, laptops, and Internet services we use every day are becoming increasingly insecure. We think one important reason is the immense complexity of these systems: new features are constantly added while older technologies still need to be supported. Implementing the same features securely by reducing system complexity is a main driver for the research we do.
“I really enjoy the work on M³, because it's questioning the traditional way of building systems by redefining the interplay of hardware and software, often leading to unforeseen results.”
- Nils Asmussen (Principal Researcher)