Avi Kivity Explained

Avi Kivity
Birth Date:	1970
Known For:	Kernel-based_Virtual_Machine, ScyllaDB
Employer:	ScyllaDB
Occupation:	Co-founder, CTO, Software engineer

Avi Kivity (he|אבי קויתי) is a software engineer who created the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) hypervisor underlying many production clouds.^{[1] [2]} Following his work on KVM, Kivity developed the Seastar framework and the ScyllaDB database.^{[2] [3]} He co-founded the company ScyllaDB with Dor Laor; Kivity is CTO and an active project contributor.^[2]

Career

Kivity began the development of KVM at Qumranet in 2006.^[4] After Red Hat acquired Qumranet in 2008, Kivity joined Red Hat and continued as the lead developer and maintainer of KVM.^{[4] [5]}

After leaving Red Hat in 2012, Kivity co-founded a company called Cloudius Systems with Dor Laor.^[2] Cloudius developed the OSv operating system for the cloud.^[6] While at Cloudius, Kivity created the Seastar framework, an open-source (Apache 2.0 licensed) C++ framework for I/O intensive asynchronous computing.^[2] Seastar later became the foundation for high performance distributed systems such as ScyllaDB, Redpanda, and Ceph.^[7]

In mid-2014, Cloudius Systems was renamed to ScyllaDB, after its main product which is used for high-throughput database workloads that require low latencies. (Forbes) Kivity serves as the company's chief technology officer and contributes to the source code development of ScyllaDB as well as Seastar.^[8]

Patents

Kivity has been granted patents for technologies implemented in KVM and ScyllaDB ^[9]

• Asynchronous input/output (I/O) using alternate stack switching in kernel space (8850443)
• Delivery of events from a virtual machine to host CPU using memory monitoring instructions (9256455)
• Delivery of events from a virtual machine to a thread executable by multiple host CPUs using memory monitoring instructions (9489228)
• CPU using memory monitoring instructions (9256455)]
• Delivery of events from a virtual machine to a thread executable by multiple host CPUs using memory monitoring instructions (9489228)
• Detection of guest disk cache (9354916)
• Event signaling in virtualized systems (9830286)
• Heat-based load balancing (11157561)
• Injecting interrupts in virtualized computer systems (9235538)
• Interprocess communication (9075795)
• Managing device access using an address hint (9575787)
• Mechanism for automatic adjustment of virtual machine storage (8244956)
• Mechanism for memory state restoration of virtual machine (VM)-controlled peripherals at a destination host machine during migration of the VM (8356120)
• Mechanism for out-of-synch virtual machine memory management optimization (8560758)
• Memory change tracking during migration of virtual machine (VM) with VM-controlled assigned peripherals (9104459)
• Memory state transfer of virtual machine-controlled peripherals during migrations of the virtual machine (8924965)
• MSI events using dynamic memory monitoring (10078603)
• On-demand hypervisor memory mapping (9342450)
• Optimistic interrupt affinity for devices (9003094)
• Optimization of operating system and virtual machine monitor memory management (10761957)
• Pessimistic interrupt affinity for devices (9201823)
• Policy enforcement by hypervisor paravirtualized ring copying (9904564)
• Virtual machine wakeup using a memory monitoring instruction (9489223)

See also

• Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM)
• ScyllaDB

External links

• kvm: the Linux Virtual Machine Monitor (Proceedings of the Linux Symposium, 2007)
• Keynote on KVM progress (Red Hat, KVM Forum, 2011)
• OSv— Optimizing the Operating System for Virtual Machines (Proceedings of USENIX ATC ’14, 2014)
• ScyllaDB Optimizes Database Architecture to Maximize Hardware Performance (IEEE Software, 2019)
• Building efficient I/O intensive applications with Seastar (Core C++, 2019)
• No-Compromise Performance (Carnegie Mellon University Database Group, 2019)
• How a Database Looks from a Disk’s Perspective (P99 CONF, 2022)

Notes and References

1. https://www.eweek.com/cloud/how-did-kvm-virtualization-get-into-the-linux-kernel/ How Did KVM Virtualization Get Into the Linux Kernel?
2. https://www.eweek.com/database/scylladb-database-emerges-out-of-cloudius-systems/ ScyllaDB Database Emerges Out of Cloudius Systems
3. https://adtmag.com/articles/2015/09/23/scylladb-cassandra.aspx New-Age C++ Boosts Open Source NoSQL Cassandra Speed 10x
4. https://www.cnet.com/tech/computing/qumranet-reveals-reason-for-all-that-kvm-work/ Qumranet reveals reason for all that KVM work SCSI target for KVM wiki
5. https://www.zdnet.com/article/kvm-steals-virtualization-spotlight/ KVM steals virtualization spotlight
6. https://www.linuxfoundation.org/blog/blog/osv-the-open-source-cloud-operating-system-that-is-not-linux OSv: The Open Source Cloud Operating System That is Not Linux
7. https://siliconangle.com/2024/05/30/redpanda-acquires-benthos-enhance-data-streaming-platform/ Redpanda acquires Benthos to enhance its data streaming platform
8. https://venturebeat.com/data-infrastructure/scylladb-6-0-advances-open-source-database-scalability/ ScyllaDB 6.0 advances open source database scalability
9. https://patents.google.com/?inventor=Avi+Kivity&oq=Avi+Kivity Google Patents