ZeroVM
ZeroVM is an open-source virtualization technology based on Google Native Client that creates a secure, isolated execution environment for running a single process at a time. It is designed to be embedded directly into storage systems, enabling developers to push applications to their data rather than moving data to compute resources. The platform includes ZeroCloud, which integrates with OpenStack Swift to support REST services, MapReduce, and batch processing workloads.
- Developer Tools
- Software Only
Funding
Funding not disclosed
Founders
Founder details are not available yet.
Product
Problem
Traditional virtualization and container technologies virtualize an entire operating system and run multiple processes, making them heavyweight, slow to deploy, and poorly suited for fine-grained, data-local processing. Moving large datasets to compute resources is costly and inefficient, especially for applications that perform parallel or batch processing directly on stored data.
Solution
ZeroVM is a lightweight, open-source virtualization technology based on the Chromium Native Client project that securely isolates and runs a single process at a time. It is designed to be embedded directly into storage systems, allowing developers to push their application to their data instead of pulling data to the application. The ZeroVM Run Time includes a port of glibc and an in-memory file system, providing a C99-compliant environment supporting most of the POSIX syscall API. All I/O is modeled as files—input appears as STDIN, logs as STDERR, and output as STDOUT—and peer-to-peer communication channels are also file-based. ZeroVM supports deterministic and cooperative threading, with thread synchronization primitives as no-ops, and is paired with ZeroCloud, a platform combining ZeroVM with OpenStack Swift to run REST services, MapReduce, and batch processing.
Target Audience
Primary users are developers and data engineers building data-intensive applications that require parallel processing, MapReduce jobs, or batch workflows, particularly those working with OpenStack Swift storage.
Features
- Single-process sandbox based on Chromium Native Client for secure isolation without full OS virtualization
- Embeddable directly into storage systems, enabling data-local compute and avoiding large-scale data movement
- ZeroVM Run Time provides C99-compliant environment with glibc port and broad POSIX syscall API support
- In-memory, transient file system where all I/O and inter-process communication channels are modeled as files
- Deterministic and cooperative threading model with synchronization primitives as no-ops
- ZeroCloud platform integration with OpenStack Swift supports running REST services, MapReduce, and batch jobs
- Includes a cross-compilation GNU toolchain specifically for developing ZeroVM-compatible applications