Here are some possible ideas for the final project for the exam:
1) Reproduce the experiments measuring the kernel latency
   (http://retis.santannapisa.it/~luca/AdvancedOS/kernel_latency.pdf, slide 33)
   on more recent software and hardware.
   You can use cyclictest (https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/realtime/documentation/howto/tools/cyclictest)
   to measure the latency, on:
   - A vanilla Linux kernel compiled as a non-preemptive kernel
     (Preemption Model = No Forced Preemption)
   - A vanilla Linux kernel compiled with
     Preemption Model = Voluntary Kernel Preemption
   - A vanilla Linux kernel compiled as preemptable
     (Preemption Model = Preemptible Kernel)
   - A preempt-RT kernel with full real-time preemption
     (http://cdn.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/projects/rt/)
   Some hints about generating a non-real-time workload that triggers high
   latencies can be found at
   https://wiki.linuxfoundation.org/realtime/documentation/howto/tools/worstcaselatency
2) Same as project 1), but compare a non-preemptable Linux kernel with
   preempt-RT and with Xenomai
3) Same as above, but use a microkernel-based system instead (for example,
   DROPS - http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/drops/ - or
   Secure L4 - https://docs.sel4.systems/GettingStarted)
4) Reproduce the Xenomai experiment
   (http://retis.santannapisa.it/~luca/AdvancedOS/XenoTest)
   with a recent version of Xenomai. You can chose the hardware architecture
   you prefer
5) Run some similar experiment with a microkernel-based system (based on
   Fiasco - http://os.inf.tu-dresden.de/fiasco 
   Secure L4 - https://docs.sel4.systems/GettingStarted
   or something different - http://www.genode.org)
6) Run some latency tests on a VM (based on Xen or KVM) using preempt-RT in
   the guest and / or in the host
7) Extend the "trap and emulate" kernel
   (http://retis.santannapisa.it/~luca/AdvancedOS/trap_and_emulate.tgz)
   to use VT-x (similarly to the
   Linux module http://retis.santannapisa.it/~luca/AdvancedOS/vmdemo.tgz)
8) Run some more advanced experiment with the kvm driver
   (extending http://retis.santannapisa.it/~luca/AdvancedOS/kvm-test.tgz)
9) Try some simple "trap and emulate" experiment on ARM / ARM64
10) Run some simple experiment with the ARM / ARM64 virtualization extensions
11) Run some experiments with an unikernel (for example, based on Solo5
    https://github.com/Solo5/solo5), comparing boot time, latencies and
    throughput with some other "optimized" VM