DLS - Andrew Tanenbaum

Andrew Tanenbaum

Andrew Tanenbaum
Vrije University

A Reliable and Secure Operating System
 
Abstract: Operating systems are getting bigger and less reliable every year Studies have shown the number of bugs per line of code to be around 6-16 bugs per 1000 lines of code, so with Linux over 2.5 millions lines of code, the kernel probably contains at least 15,000 bugs, and Windows has far more. Most of these bugs are in the device drivers. As long as we maintain the current structure of the operating system as a huge single monolithic program running in kernel mode, the situation will only get worse.

In an attempt to improve this situation, we have created a new multiserver operating system with only 4000 lines in kernel and the rest of the operating system split up into small rigidly controlled pieces, each running as a user-mode process. The talk will discuss the architecture of this system, called MINIX 3, and its reliability and security properties.

Biography: Andrew S. Tanenbaum was born in New York City  and raised in White Plains, N.Y. He has an SB from the MIT and a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. He is currently a Professor of Computer Science at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

Prof. Tanenbaum is the principal designer of three operating systems: TSS-11, Amoeba, and MINIX. TSS-11 was an early system for the PDP-11. Amoeba is a distributed operating systems for SUN, VAX, and similar workstation computers. MINIX is a small operating system designed for high reliability and embedded applications as well as for teaching.

In addition, Tanenbaum is the author or coauthor of five books:

  • Distributed Systems (2002) (with Maarten van Steen)
  • Modern Operating Systems 2/e (2001)
  • Structured Computer Organization, 5/e (2006)
  • Operating System: Design and Implementation, 3/e, (2006) (with Albert S. Woodhull)
  • Computer Networks, 4/e (2003)

These books have been translated into 20 languages and are used all over the world. Tanenbaum has also published more than 100 refereed papers on a variety of subjects and has lectured in a dozen countries on many topics.

Tanenbaum is a Fellow of the ACM, a Fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences. In 1994 he was the recipient of the ACM Karl V. Karlstrom Outstanding Educator Award. In 1997 he won the ACM SIGCSE Awards for Outstanding Contributions to Computer Science.

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2012-2013 DLS

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2005-2006 DLS

  • Umesh Vazirani
  • Stephen Cook
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