DATE: Thursday, January 29, 2009
TIME: 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
PLACE: Wean Hall 8220

SPEAKER: Brad Chen, Google, Inc.

TITLE:
Native Client - A Sandbox for Portable, Untrusted x86 Native Code

ABSTRACT:
Native Client is an open-source research technology for running x86 native code in web applications, with the goal of maintaining the browser neutrality, OS portability, and safety that people expect from web apps. Native Client uses software fault isolation and a specialized runtime to direct all system interaction and side effects through managed interfaces. It  supports performance-oriented features generally absent from web application programming environments, such as thread support, instruction set extensions such as SSE, and use of compiler intrinsics and hand-coded assembler. We combine these properties in an open architecture designed to leverage existing web standards, and to encourage community review and 3rd-party tools. This technical talk will cover system design and implementation, and some of our experiences securing and using the system.

In December we open-sourced the system. For more information and resources see http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient.

BIO:
J. Bradley Chen manages the Native Client project at Google, where he has also worked on cluster performance analysis projects. Prior to joining Google, he was Director of the Performance Tools Lab in Intel's Software Products Division. Chen served on the faculty of Harvard University from 1994-1998, conducting research in operating systems, computer architecture and distributed system, and teaching a variety of related graduate and undergraduate courses. He has published widely on the subjects of systems performance and computer architecture. Dr. Chen has bachelors and masters degrees from Stanford University and a Ph.D. from Carnegie Mellon University.

Visitor Host: Peter Lee
Visitor Coordinator: Diana Hyde

SDI / LCS Seminar Questions?
Karen Lindenfelser, 86716, or visit www.pdl.cmu.edu/SDI/