Xen Automotive: Bringing Virtualization To Cars

Linux within cars was a big topic at this week's Linux Foundation Collaboration Summit in Napa Valley. Besides Intel talking up Tizen IVI, Xen Automotive is the work being done for using Xen virtualization on ARM hardware within automobiles.

Virtualization is coming to the computer systems within cars for isolation/security purposes and abstracting out driver differences between platforms. The Xen hypervisor in recent versions is running well on ARM and is "perfectly fit for embedded applications." There's ARM HVM support with Xen 4.3 while NVIDIA/Samsung have made experimental ARM para-virtualization support. A Xen branch for automotive applications is working on support for guest OS support that includes Android, QNX, Autosar, Ubuntu, Genivi Linux, Tizen, and Yocto platforms.

Those interested in Linux IVI applications or Xen in the automotive environment can see the PDF slides by GlobalLogic's Alex Agizim.

Another Xen session held this week at the summit in Napa covered Xen 4.4's features and other new features coming down the pipeline that are rather exciting.