By : Versha Thakur Shravani Aishwarya The Design, Implementation & Evaluation of Cells : A Virtual Smartphone Architecture By : Versha Thakur Shravani Aishwarya

Introduction Smartphones- most necessary tools to carry nowadays. Cells are used to enable virtual smartphone features. Features like 3D graphics, power management, caller ID support etc. Malicious software's can easily access data. Solution – Virtual Machine (VM) Mechanism Cells uses OS virtualization (run multiple VP’s on a single instance) Tested on Google Nexus 1 and Nexus S phones.

Requirements Sensitive information must never be leaked. Support exclusive & shared access across VPs. Sensitive information must never be leaked. Prevent malicious applications.

USAGE MODEL Cells runs on multiple VPs on a single hardware phone. VP runs a standard Android environment. Different level of access & permissions based on the function to be performed. Switching of VPs depend on the level of access given. VPs configured on a PC & downloaded to a phone via USB.

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

Device namespaces Introduces New kernel- level mechanisms Kernel –Level Device Virtualization Introduces user- level device namespace proxy mechanism. Starting new VP, cell mounts the VP file system. User- Level Device Virtualization Cells enable Linux Kernel Samepage Merging (KSM) for short time. Uses Android low memory killer – to increase total no. of VPs. Scalability Techniques

GRAPHICS Framebuffer GPU Power Management Leverages Kernel-level device namespace Driver (mux_fb) Multiplexes access to a single physical device. GPU Replace Poor quality graphics Scenes in a video game, custom animations. Power Management Background VPs should not be able to put the device into a low power mode. Should not prevent the foreground VP from putting the device into a low power mode.

Experimental Results

REPEATABILITY Resources are not expensive or difficult to perform research Requires a group of people with knowledge of many different topics. REPEATABLE, if proper knowledge in all fields of software & hardware.

EXTENDABILITY Android latest version (4.3) supports the user profiles. Done in 2012. Android latest version (4.3) supports the user profiles. Samsung released few devices – one click switch between Android & Windows. Samsung is running two completely different OS on one device. So research is already extended.

CRITICISM Missing concepts such as Hardware virtualizations. Latest cell phones are providing various multi-tasking features. Only performed to run same OS on different VP’s. If two different OS’s is implemented – increase the acceptance of the product. Research on only one phone model Google Nexus.

CONCLUSION Driven by virtualization mechanisms, device namespaces. Virtualized critical hardware devices such as framebuffer and GPU. Android’s complicated power management framework- no extra power consumption. Cells provides each VP with complete use of standard cellular phone network by using VoIP cloud service. Implemented on Google Nexus 1 and Nexus S.

REFERENCES http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2324876.2324877&coll=DL&dl=ACM http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~cdall/pubs/Cells-SOSP-final.pdf http://systems.cs.columbia.edu/projects/cells/ http://thecsbox.com/2013/05/cells-virtual-smartphone-architecture/ http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.231.5887