Toward Replaceable and Testable Functions for OpenBMC

Abstract

How should we test and debug a new software module within a live large complex system without the process of shut-down, rebuild, and restart? 

In this talk, we will share the design and implementation of Replaceable and Testable functions (RTFs) under the context of OpenBMC, an open-source Baseboard Management Controllers firmware stack. While we have successfully handled released functions under OpenBMC, we encountered interesting challenges in generating C++ functions (or generative OOP in general), instead of following a manual development process. These new requirements for AI-assisting OpenBMC development have motivated us to re-think the Transformer architecture. In particular, I will discuss the concepts of token sequence reusability and KV-cache reconstruction under this ongoing project.

Bio

Dr. Shyhtsun Felix Wu received his BS from Tunghai University, Taiwan in 1985, MS., and Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1989 and 1995 respectively, all in Computer Science. He is a Professor of Electrical Engineering at National Cheng Kung University, and currently serves as the Dean of the College of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. He was a Professor of Computer Science and Associate Dean of Engineering at UC Davis until July 2024. He has been doing “experimental” research, i.e., building prototype systems to justify and validate novel architectural concepts. His current research interests include secure system architecture, autonomous unknown vulnerability discovery and analysis, and, most recently, ethics-aware computing under the EthikOS project.