Nooks: an architecture for reliable device drivers

With the enormous growth in processor performance over the last decade, it is clear that reliability, rather than performance, is now the greatest challenge for computer systems research. This is particularly true in the context of Internet services that require 24x7 operation and home computers with no professional administration. While operating system products have matured and become more reliable, they are still the source of a significant number of failures. Furthermore, recent studies show that device drivers are frequently responsible for operating system failures. For example, a study at Stanford University found that Linux drivers have 3 to 7 times the bug frequency as the rest of the OS [4]. An analysis of product support calls for Windows 2000 showed that device drivers accounted for 27% of crashes, compared to 2% for the kernel itself [16].

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