Grasshopper: An Orthogonally Persistent Operating System

For ten years researchers have been attempting to construct programming language systems that support orthogonal persistence above conventional operating systems. This approach has proven to be poor; researchers invariably construct a complete abstract machine above the operating system with resulting loss of efficiency. This paper describes a new approach, the construction of an operating system designed to support orthogonal persistence. The operating system, Grasshopper, relies upon three powerful and orthogonal abstractions: containers, loci and capabilities. Containers provide the only abstraction over storage, loci are the agents of change, and capabilities are the means of access and protection in the system. This paper describes these three fundamental abstractions of Grasshopper, their rationale and how they are used.