RunPHI: Enabling Mixed-criticality Containers via Partitioning Hypervisors in Industry 4.0

TL;DR

RunPHI introduces a partitioning hypervisor approach to enhance isolation in container orchestration systems for mixed-criticality applications in Industry 4.0, addressing security and reliability concerns.

Contribution

It presents RunPHI, a novel system integrating partitioning hypervisors with OS-level orchestration to support mixed-criticality containers with strong isolation.

Findings

Supports mixed-criticality container deployment in Industry 4.0

Enhances isolation compared to traditional OS-level virtualization

Facilitates secure and reliable container orchestration

Abstract

Orchestration systems are becoming a key component to automatically manage distributed computing resources in many fields with criticality requirements like Industry 4.0 (I4.0). However, they are mainly linked to OS-level virtualization, which is known to suffer from reduced isolation. In this paper, we propose RunPHI with the aim of integrating partitioning hypervisors, as a solution for assuring strong isolation, with OS-level orchestration systems. The purpose is to enable container orchestration in mixed-criticality systems with isolation requirements through partitioned containers.