PROS - An Omnipresent Operating System
Monika Shah, Rakshit Trivedi, Priyank Mehta, and Pratik Pattani
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India.
Email: monika.shah@nirmauni.ac.in
{05bce079, 05bce135, 05bce061}@nirmauni.ac.in
Abstract—The central idea presented in this paper is to
show the architecture and working of an Operating System
running over the network, thus leading to global computing.
"PROS", as it is named, provides transparency meaning it
would work same as a real operating system on the PC
without need of static installation. PROS would load up on
the user's PC irrespective of the location along with user’s
personalized settings providing with the feel of pervasive
computing. By real operating system, we mean that it would
provide all the features such as memory management,
scheduling, on demand loading etc, thus making it different
from the prevailing WEB OS's which are a collection of
several Web Services clubbed together, and require a
browser and a base operating system to work on. PROS will
be able to work independently of other existing operating
systems and thereby would be the only operating system
that the host machine has to interact with. Such an
operating system will be much more economical and will
also help the client machine to be less hardware dependent.
In addition to operating system services on a local machine,
it provides mobility to run operating system from any
computer system with configured settings.
Index Terms—PROS, virtual net-based OS, WEB OS, WEB
FS, Operating System, RAC, Live CD, SOA, SaaS.
I. INTRODUCTION
In the present scenario, the basic needs of the humans
have changed drastically which consists of speed,
portability, mobility and security. Our effort is to present
an innovation which would give people an environment
to access and manage their work all round the globe and
provide a very high security to their work thus giving
them a flavor of pervasive computing.
The paper, initially introduces the concept of
accessing the virtual net-based Operating System that
would be lively available all over the globe. It further
gives a glimpse of the various features that would be
made available to the users of this operating system.
Secondly, it provides information about the various
components required by the clients and the servers. It
then goes deeply into the explanation of the architecture
and the design issues to provide the in-core information
about the methodologies and functionalities to be used in
the development and for the deployment of the Operating
System.
The design issues are followed by the customizations
that will be provided to the PROS users. Further it
presents the comparison and the advantages of PROS
over the prevailing WEBOSes and LIVE CD technology
while the practical implication of the project forms the
concluding part of paper.
II. OBJECTIVE
Taking Concept of Web OS closer to “real OS”.
The objective of our project is to develop a network
based virtual operating system that the user would be able
to access on the network, independent of any other
browser or operating system. It would provide a virtual
OS environment for any machine configuration without
the need of storage media.
Today, various applications are provided on the web,
which serve the purpose of the operating system to some
extent. Such web applications, using
HTTP+JavaScript+XHTML+CSS+Flash technology,
provide some of the conventional OS services and the
Graphical User Interface.
Current WEB OS’s being web applications require a
browser and an operating system on the host machine on
the top of which it works. PROS would be the sole
operating system dealing directly with the host machine.
III. FEATURES
Dynamic OS: PROS can be made available with
required customization even when accessed from
different machines. Generic drivers required for the client
machine will be loaded dynamically using the bootable
disk provided to the user.
On demand File System: PROS will provide the user
with an immediate access to his/her personal data store
from any machine around the globe.
Host Machine-independent processing to a large
extent: PROS can be used over any client machine
irrespective of its local resources as the main functioning
of the operating system is handled on server side.
Minimal hardware configurations at the client
machine: No storage devices such as hard drives will be
required on client machine as data will be stored on
servers. So hardware requirements of the client machine
comes down to primary memory with minimal
configuration of 128 M (preferably 512 M), thereby
facilitating use of low-cost "diskless" computers.
Reduced Cost for large number of computers used
in organization for some specific purpose in
distributed environment: PROS will be suitable option
for an organization, wherein a number of systems are
used for only a specific set of applications, so that clients
with minimal hardware configuration can be effectively
used. Use of PROS will create a virtual net-based OS
framework for systems running in the distributed
environment.
 Cache memory and Reserved memory
configurations: Cache memory configurations will be
provided for getting the frequently used applications
loaded faster when required. Reserved memory area is
meant for providing better performance during the use of
real time and memory intensive applications.
On demand software: Various applications will be
installed on the servers and made available to clients on
demand using the concept of SaaS (Software as a
Service) and SOA (Service Oriented Architecture).
Maximum application resource utilization with
minimum user licensing: As software packages are
installed on the server, they will be made available to
users on loading the OS which eliminates the need for
purchasing the individual licensed copy for various
applications or same application for several machines.
Crash safe Transaction: This feature will be
achieved with the support of multiple online server and
efficient log managers. Moreover, Real Application
Clusters (RAC) will be used to make the system 24 * 7
live and persistent with the help of regular backups.
Seamless portability/mobility: PROS will provide
boundless portability and mobility as its user will be
required to posses only a bootable disk drive and an
internet connection to access his personalized system
from anywhere in the globe.
Customization: PROS will provide support for
customizations regarding the personal settings of user. It
will also be possible to customize PROS as per the needs
of distributed environment.
External Device Interface: Mounting of external
devices can be done locally by downloading the required
components in the reserved memory on the local
machine.
IV. COMPONENTS INVOLVED
A. Hardware Components
The servers would consist of large amount of data
storage devices such as tape drives and hard drives on
repository servers. In case of the application and
transaction servers, due to very high amount of
processing, large amount of the active memory and
efficient hardware components would be required.
On the client side the hardware requirements would
be minimal. The client would fundamentally require a
network card, main memory, cache support (for high
performance), and the external drive support like CD and
USB drives. He may opt for static disk drives on the
machine at his will and may also use client side cache so
as to get faster access to his frequently used applications.
B. Software Components
TFTP/DHCP Server.
Generic Device Drivers.
File System.
Interfacing Application.
Memory Manager.
Application specific components.
Network Manager.
On the network, all the conventional protocols like
TCP/IP, UDP, ARP, DHCP, and TFTP etc. would be
necessary for connection and communication.
V. METHOLOGY AND FUNCTIONALITY
A. ARCHITECTURE
PROS is an operating system which would consist of
a minimal configured client terminal on the user side and
highly configured and efficient servers as its working
environment. Hence it is required to be implemented
using multi-tier Client-Server Architecture to make it
highly efficient and robust.
Client Tier
The CLIENT TIER, comprising of a thin client,
consists of minimal components both with respect to
storage capacity and processing power. Server side Cache
memory is used to provide better and fast interaction with
the frequently used components.
The boot loader (provided on the bootable disk) will
download OS image (specific to each client) which would
be consisting of the necessary components such as the
generic drivers, some components for the temporary
processing, memory management, GUI components, and
network manager [2].
The Interfacing Application would be a GUI
component which would provide an interface between the
server and the client for further interactions once the OS
image has been loaded.
The Client tier will consist of the reserved memory
which can be used at the time of execution of real time
and computation intensive applications.
Transaction Tier
Components in Client tier interface with
TRANSACTION Tier. This is the most vital tier in the
whole architecture as this tier is responsible for carrying
out various interactions of each user with PROS and for
validating users. It also consists of the transaction
manager which implements scheduling algorithms to
transfer request to the application tier for load balancing,
RAC and session management
The Transaction tier primarily consists of the Client
Communication Module (CCM) which will communicate
with each of the users on the network independently and
will provide them with an interface that will make them
feel of having their own operating system running locally.
This tier also consists of three other modules viz.
transaction manager, request/response manager and
failure handler. The transaction manager is responsible to
pass requests to appropriate transaction servers in
addition to carrying out its above cited tasks.
The request/response manager is responsible for
delivering the request to the various other tiers as
required and delivers the response from these tiers to the
CCM which in turn will send this response to the client.
The failure handler module consists of user log and
recovery mechanism. Whenever a failure occurs either in

Figure 1. Architecture of PROS (Arrows depict communication path)
client/server or the network, the failure handler will store
the user’s transactions into the log files which will later
be used for recovery.
Repository Tier
This tier consists of the file system structures, the
physical and logical data storage, data structures, file
system and location manager, backup handler and
modules to communicate with the Application tier.
Whenever the Transaction/Application server sends
the request for the required file to this tier, File Locator
retrieves the required file and sends back to the
requesting tier. The file system structure consists of a root
directory which is the root for all the users of the system
and will contain the information of all the users and a log
to maintain their track. Next in the hierarchy will be the
root directory of each user that is registered to access the
system. The system root will also consist of the server
configuration files. Each user directory will consist of the
data files, the user profile which will consist of the saved
personalized settings of its owner and the log files which
will keep the track of user’s transactions and data storage.
The data is identified with the help of URI (Universal
Resource Identifier) thus giving rise to (Network File
System) NFS structure.
The Repository Tier also consists of the module for
handling backups which are most crucial for recovering
from the failures and also for maintaining the consistency
of the data. Moreover, the tier consists of the store of
Generic Drivers for various devices. The Application
Figure 2. File System Structure
Communication Module (ACM) in this tier is responsible
for communicating with the Application Tier which
accesses file system of this tier.
Application Tier
The Application Tier is the heart of PROS. The
Application Tier consists of the Application Specific
Components (ASC) and Generic Components (GC). The
ASC includes various components necessary for the
functioning of different applications. The Generic
Components will include the components like framework
and runtime environment required for supporting various
applications.
PROS will use Real Application Clusters to keep the
system 24 * 7 live and persistent with the help of regular
backups.
B. DESIGN OF PROS
Kernel
On the client side, the OS image downloaded from
the network will consist of the microkernel. A
microkernel is a minimal computer operating system
kernel which provides no operating-system services at all,
only the mechanisms needed to implement such services,
viz., low-level address space management, thread
management, and inter-process communication (IPC) are
provided [6]. The microkernel of PROS will provide
some core functionalities which include:
Mechanisms for dealing with address spaces — this
is required for managing memory protection.
Inter-process communication — required to invoke
servers running in their own address spaces.
On the server side, the conventional monolithic kernel
would work on the network comprising of the different
tiers as described in the architecture. This kernel would
provide all the services such as scheduling, memory
management, IPC, RPC and file management.
Figure 3. WEBFS Architecture
File Management
PROS will use WEBFS which is a global file system
used for the management of the files for all users.
The WebFS system architecture (as shown in Fig. 3)
consists of two parts: A user-level daemon and a
loadable vnode module.
When an application makes the read system call
requesting a WebFS file, the operating system translates
the call into a vnode read operation. The vnode operation
checks to see if the read can be satisfied in the kernel
(i.e., if the page being requested is cached in the kernel).
If the operation cannot be satisfied in the kernel, the
vnode operation fills in a structure requesting a read of
the file page in question and wakes up one of the sleeping
threads in the work queue. The user level daemon is then
responsible for retrieving the page, by contacting a
remote HTTP or WebFS daemon. Once the page is
retrieved remotely, the reverse path is followed into the
kernel [1].
Process Management
In PROS, there will be multiple processes running on
the different tiers of its architecture. The various
processes will be distributed among the multiple servers
so as to get high throughput, performance and optimal
resource utilization.
PROS will provide the conventional process
management services that include:
Suspension and resumption of processes.
Mechanism for process synchronization and
deadlock handling.
Mechanism for IPC and RPC.
In PROS, RPC will be implemented for
communication among processes residing on different
tiers. The context switching between various processes
will occur according to the requirements and the requests
made by various tiers or the user processes.
Scheduling
The scheduling of the various processes is a very
crucial step. The scheduling module consists of three
major components: a resource state information database,
a module which computes request (object) mapping to
resources (hosts and vaults), and an activation agent
responsible for implementing the computed schedule [5].
C. Working of PROS
Figure 4. Generic Flow diagram - Working of PROS. Here b, c, d are
the modules for invoking applications, saving files and playing media
respectively.
VI. FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
A. Proposed Models
User customized settings stored on client machine: If
user uses the same client machine most of the time, the
customized settings related to Generic GUI can be saved
as a file by client onto any local storage device and used
every time the OS boots.
Frequently used Application Image stored onto client
machine: Application specific components for the
frequently used applications can be stored onto the client
machines so that it is not required to be downloaded
every time the application is initiated.
Load balancing by shifting some processes to client:
Using an algorithmic approach some specific processes
can be carried out locally on client machine for
performance tuning whereby processing power of client
may be utilized [1].
The second approach of providing frequently used
application image stored onto the client machine is
ideally suited for efficient working of PROS.
B. Cost Analysis and Resource Utilization
Whenever a user buys a PC, he has to spend a lot
more money as compared to his utilization. The
utilization of a normal home user would be
approximately 5 hrs a day or even less than that. Now the
lifetime of a normal PC would be approximately around 5
yrs. According to a statistics, this results into 20 %
utilization of the system by the user. During this 20%
utilization also, the actual resource utilization turns out to
be only around 4%.
Considering the normal prevalent costs of the
resources available and comparing it with the
configurations of the components required to be present
in the system which will use PROS, the cost is estimated
to get reduced by 50%. This estimation includes the
consideration of the cost required for developing and
maintaining servers. With this cost we will move a step
closer towards the ‘$99’ computer.
VII. SECURITY
PROS will consist of various modules for providing
security and performs the following steps for the same:
Authentication Using Passwords.
Maintaining Sessions using Kerberos protocol.
Periodic relocation of critical and confidential data.
Digital Certificates to identify genuine clients and
servers.
CD piracy not an issue: As the operating system can
be loaded only after passing various Authentication steps,
even if the CD is pirated the User would not get access
unless and until user registers and validates himself.
VIII. COMPARISIONS
A. Advantages
Optimal Resource Utilization.
No compatibility issues for various software
applications.
Data access available all around the world.
Client Resource Independence.
Highly Economical.
Minimum Client Hardware requirement.
On demand software available from server.
B. Pitfalls in Prevalent WEB-OS
The Web Operating System prevailing at present is
basically a web application better known as Web
Desktop rather than a real operating system.
HTTP+JavaScript+XHTML+CSS+Flash technology
is not as robust in providing functionality and user
interaction as true desktop applications.
Scripting Errors and Cross browser compatibility
issues have always been there.
Not 100% secure.
Resource Utilization is not proper.
Software Applications are not available on demand.
For most of the applications, software is required to
be installed.
C. Benefits over Live CD
Live CD requires storage media on the client
machine to store the data and run various
applications. Moreover, the performance of various
services depends on the local resources. In PROS,
servers are used for both storage and processing,
making it highly economical and efficient to use as
compared to Live CD.
Updates for services that will be offered by PROS
can be easily incorporated while it is difficult to
update the operating system provided on Live CD.
IX. IMPLICATIONS
The practical implication of PROS would be on a
very broad line. First of all the development of the client
side software viz., boot loader is to be carried out. This
will be provided to the user on a small storage device
through which he would be able to login and get access to
the file system and personalized settings stored under his
profile [4].
On booting, the necessary components of PROS
would be downloaded in the form of OS image from the
server. After this download, a connection will be
maintained for the data transfer. On the server various
operating system services like file system management,
process management, etc will be handled in an efficient
way using optimal algorithms for each of them.
There might be issues regarding the cost for
bandwidth required and speed but that can be overcome
with lapse of time and with suitable tools for getting
committed Bandwidth [3].
CONCLUSION
PROS will provide OS services to wide-area
applications, including mechanisms for resource
discovery, a global namespace, and remote process
execution, on demand file system, on demand
applications, resource management, authentication, and
security.
Thus our paper is an effort towards providing the
three basic necessities of user’s viz., speed, portability
and security in an innovative way along with providing
them the feel of pervasive computing.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
We are greatly thankful to Prof. K.P. Agrawal,
Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
Institute of Technology, Nirma University, for guiding us
in the exploration of our work and providing us all the
required aids.
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