Ship Multikernel Inside Your Appliance
Built for storage and appliance vendors who embed an operating system and ship it to their customers. Multikernel splits one controller into independent kernel fault domains: a driver fault becomes a restartable component instead of a controller-wide panic, and a kernel patch no longer triggers a failover event.
Sub-Node Fault Domains
In a monolithic controller OS, a single driver fault panics the entire node, triggering controller failover, peer degradation, and a DRAM cache re-mirror. The split-kernel architecture reduces the fault domain to one layer of the I/O stack: kernel boundaries follow the data path, and each layer fails and recovers independently.
A driver fault restarts one kernel. No controller failover, no cache re-mirror event.
Component-Level Fault Recovery
A failed driver kernel restarts in place while the data kernel continues serving from cache. The impact is confined to one layer of the I/O stack rather than the node covered by your availability SLA.
Structural Tail-Latency Isolation
Rebuild, resync, and background scrubbing run in their own kernel on their own cores. p99.9 latency is protected by architectural isolation rather than by tuning that degrades under load.
Per-Layer Kernel Specialization
An interrupt-free data kernel, a polling device kernel, and smaller synchronization domains on many-core controllers. Each kernel is configured for a single role.
LiveUpdate as the Entry Point
LiveUpdate integrates into an existing storage OS without architectural changes. It deploys standalone, per node, inside the operating system you already ship. Adoption is sequenced to limit risk: LiveUpdate proves itself inside your current OS first, and the fault-domain split follows only when evaluation results support it.
Kernel Patches Without Failover
The patched kernel boots alongside the running one; the data path migrates incrementally, with instant rollback available throughout. No peer degradation, no cache re-mirror, and no maintenance window on single-controller systems.
CVE Management for Appliances
Security backports delivered under SLA, an errata feed that integrates with your release process, and a ready-to-apply LiveUpdate image for every fix. Field systems stay patched without reboot-driven support escalations.
Sub-Second Crash Failover
A standby kernel monitors the primary and takes over its devices in under a second, removing kernel panics as a driving factor in your availability model.
Licensing and Redistribution
Multikernel is licensed under GPL-2.0 and remains fully open source. The OEM subscription covers what commercial redistribution requires: the rights and build infrastructure to ship signed Multikernel builds under your brand, backed by SLA-based engineering support behind your support organization.
Open Source Base
Built on upstream Linux under GPL-2.0. Evaluate, prototype, and embed without license negotiation. Joint engineering work is contributed upstream.
OEM Subscription
Priced per shipped controller. One validated kernel stream to track, instead of engineering effort spent chasing upstream kernel churn across your product lines.
Performance Validated in Evaluation
Performance characteristics are measured during evaluation on your hardware and workloads, not projected from synthetic benchmarks. The architectural benefits are structural: fault containment, tail-latency isolation, and reboot-free maintenance.
From Evaluation to Shipping
A three-step engagement model, from proof of concept to a shipping product line.
Evaluation
Proof of concept on your controller hardware and I/O stack: LiveUpdate integration first, followed by a fault-domain split, measured on your workloads.
Integration
Embed Multikernel into your appliance OS with our engineers working alongside your team: fault-domain boundaries for your data path, device kernel enablement for your HBAs and NICs.
Ship and Maintain
Signed build stream, CVE SLA, and second-line support for the life of the product line. Enablement work is contributed upstream with your platform as the reference implementation.