Efficient Performance-Aware GPU Sharing with Compatibility and Isolation through Kernel Space Interception

Shulai Zhang, Ao Xu, Quan Chen, Han Zhao, and Weihao Cui, Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Zhen Wang, Yan Li, and Limin Xiao, Lenovo; Minyi Guo, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

To support diverse GPU applications and ensure their performance, it is crucial to ensure compatibility, isolation, and maximizing utilization. However, existing approaches are limited to CUDA runtimes and have vulnerable isolation, where the misbehavior or crash of a single application disrupts all other applications sharing the same GPU. Moreover, existing solutions fail to efficiently orchestrate the applications.

Our investigation reveals that the limitations in compatibility and isolation stem from the user-space design of existing GPU-sharing solutions. To address these issues, we propose KRYPTON, a kernel-space GPU-sharing scheme that ensures compatibility and isolation. KRYPTON intercepts GPU command buffers at the kernel level to provide virtual GPU devices. Rather than relying on fixed GPU resource allocation, it employs efficient spatio-temporal sharing, enabling performance guarantees while improving resource utilization. Experimental results show that KRYPTON reduces the required GPU number by 32.1% compared with SOTA baselines, while providing robust compatibility and isolation.

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BibTeX
@inproceedings {308530,
author = {Shulai Zhang and Ao Xu and Quan Chen and Han Zhao and Weihao Cui and Zhen Wang and Yan Li and Limin Xiao and Minyi Guo},
title = {Efficient {Performance-Aware} {GPU} Sharing with Compatibility and Isolation through Kernel Space Interception},
booktitle = {2025 USENIX Annual Technical Conference (USENIX ATC 25)},
year = {2025},
isbn = {978-1-939133-48-9},
address = {Boston, MA},
pages = {1003--1019},
url = {https://www.usenix.org/conference/atc25/presentation/zhang-shulai},
publisher = {USENIX Association},
month = jul
}

Presentation Video