Virtual Private Machines: Improving User-Perceived Performance

Inconsistent system behavior causes unpredictable performance which is known to stress users; making the system perform consistently should remove this source of user stress. Operating systems currently provide the illusion that each application runs on a dedicated Virtual Machine. This paper proposes incorporating performance into this abstraction, resulting in a Virtual Private Machine. The VPM abstraction aims to improve user-perceived performance by increasing performance consistency, and it is applicable to any uservisible application, from word processors to web servers. To provide VPMs, per-resource performance models allow resources to be scheduled to meet target response times calculated for each user-visible action.