Microsoft Continues "Demikernel" Development LibOS For Kernel-Bypass I/O

A Microsoft Research project that was quietly announced a few years ago to some fanfare but not hearing much about since has been Demikernel as their library OS architecture for kernel-bypass I/O. A Phoronix reader brought up Demikernel this week and while it hasn't been talked about much in recent years it does remain under active development with the most recent commits as of hours ago.

Microsoft describes Demikernel on the Microsoft Research site as:

"The Demikernel is a new library OS architecture for kernel-bypass I/O in datacenter servers. The Demikernel defines a new kernel-bypass I/O abstraction and uses library OSes to flexibly provide that abstraction across different kernel-bypass devices (e.g., DPDK, RDMA). This standardized, high-level interface makes kernel-bypass applications easier to build and portable across different kernel-bypass devices."

The Demikernel library operating system architecture features the "Catnap" Linux Sockets/Windows Winsock LibOS, the "Catnip" DPDK LibOS, and the "Catpowder" Linux raw sockets / Windows XDP libOS. Demikernel is written in the Rust programming language.

There hasn't been much in the way of presentations on Microsoft's Demikernel since 2021, but those wanting to learn more about it can see this 2021 ACM SIGOPS presentation:

Microsoft continues actively developing Demikernel but is considered a prototype at this stage even with 4,600+ commits so far to the project. Microsoft developers the Demikernel under the MIT license and those wanting to check out this code can find it on GitHub.