Workshop on the Interaction between Operating Systems and Computer Architecture

( WIOSCA 2009 )

Held in conjunction with the 2009 International Symposium on Computer Architecture (ISCA-36)


June, Austin, Texas

Call for Papers Alternate Formats ( html )

NEWS 05/13/2009: Advanced Program Announced (Click Here)

NEWS 03/20/2009: Paper Submission Site Open (Click Here)



Operating systems (OS) constitute a major software component and are essential to any computing system. Commercial and server workloads such as online transaction processing, database, file/e-mail servers involve significant OS-level activity. The interactions between OS and emerging architectures (e.g. homogeneous and heterogeneous chip multiprocessors, simultaneous multithreading systems) / technology (e.g. hardware-assisted virtualization) are projected to continuously increase. To optimize system performance/power/reliability/security, it is important to facilitate efficient interaction and cooperation between the two constantly evolving components - computer architecture and OS.

This workshop focuses on characterizing, modeling, and optimizing the interaction between OS and hardware in the light of emerging architecture paradigms, workloads, and computing technology. Topics of particular interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Architectural support and mechanisms for OS functionality and services
  • OS support for emerging computer architectures
  • Architectural support for virtual machines and hypervisors
  • Implications of hardware virtualization and virtual machines on OS design
  • Frameworks and tools for full-system simulation
  • Techniques for mitigating the bottlenecks of OS execution
  • OS-aware microarchitecture (e.g. predictor, cache, and execution unit) design
  • Performance, power, dependability, and security in OS
  • Evaluation of the interactions and interference between OS and user applications
  • Workload variability issues full-system evaluation
  • Effect of OS mechanisms (e.g. scheduling, resource management) on emerging architectures
  • Characterization of OS activity in existing and emerging workloads
  • Leveraging OS to optimize reliability/thermal/power

Furthermore, the workshop aims at providing a forum for researchers, engineers, and students from academia and industry to discuss their latest research in computer architecture and OS, to bring their ideas and research problems to the attention of others, and to obtain valuable and instant feedback from fellow researchers.


Workshop Co-Organizers

Sangyeun Cho, University of Pittsburgh (http://www.cs.pitt.edu/~cho/)
Tao Li, University of Florida (http://www.taoli.ece.ufl.edu/)
Onur Mutlu, Carnegie Mellon University (http://www.ece.cmu.edu/~omutlu/)


Publicity/Publication Chair

James Poe, University of Florida (jpoe@ufl.edu)


Program Committee:

Brad Beckmann, AMD
Brad Chen, Google
Alexandra Fedorova, Simon Fraser University
Ravi Iyer, Intel
Jim Larus, Microsoft Research
Tong Li, Intel
Beng-Hong Lim, VMware
Chuck Moore, AMD
Nacho Navarro, UPC
KyoungSoo Park, University of Pittsburgh
Yanos Sazeides, University of Cyprus
Yoshio Turner, Hewlett Packard Labs
Osman Unsal, Barcelona Supercomputing Center
Kushagra Vaid, Microsoft
Zhao Zhang, Iowa State University


Submission Guidelines:

Please follow this link to the paper submission site: https://cmt.research.microsoft.com/WIOSCA2009/

Note: Accounts must be created before the abstract deadline date. Please be sure to confirm and finalize your submission after every modification to save your changes. All submissions can be modified/edited until the paper submission deadline. If you have any questions or problems, feel free to email James Poe.
1. Submit an abstract under 200 words by April 8, 2009.
2. Submit the full paper under 5,000 words by April 15, 2009.

Important Dates
  • Abstract Submission: April 8, 2009.
  • Paper Submission: April 15, 2009.
  • Author Notification: May 15, 2009 May 13, 2009.
  • Camera-ready Version: May 25, 2009 May 20, 2009.



Please feel free to visit the website from last years workshop:
http://www.ideal.ece.ufl.edu/main.php?action=wiosca08