Analysis and a case study of transparent computing implementation with UEFI

Transparent computing (TC) can be thought as a special kind of cloud computing that regards storage as a service. TC logically splits the software stack from the underlying hardware platform, and separates the computing unit from storage for the purpose of making the same software run on different hardware and different software run on the same hardware. TC requires a unified software-hardware interface to abstract the underlying platform details. As the new generation BIOS interface, Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) defines the interface between the software stack and hardware platform, which aligns TC well. UEFI’s modular design also allows for BIOS customisation. An ideal vision of TC implementation with UEFI is proposed in this paper as the forecast. Several models are also provided to illustrate the constraints of current hardware and software stack in terms of performance, portability, and hardware adaptability. Finally, a case study of a wireless TC tablet is provided together with the analysis.