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Charon-HPA is a hardware virtualization layer running under Linux on industry standard servers. It covers a range of HP's HP3000 and HP9000 servers and provides the ability for any existing HP3000 or HP9000 user to move to modern Intel-based server hardware.
Modern software operating systems contain a hardware abstraction layer (HAL). The HAL creates a software layer on top of the hardware to "virtualize" the functionality of the hardware components. The Charon-HPA products are essentially HALs of complete HP3000 or HP9000 systems, including their PCI-based I/O devices. They are precise models of HP3000 and HP9000 hardware, and contain modules which emulate the HP3000 and HP9000 PA-RISC CPUs, console subsystem, buses and I/O adapters, disks and tapes.
The installation of Charon-HPA on a general purpose host platform provides an exact model of a working HP3000 or HP9000 system. On this 'virtual' system you install your HP3000 or HP9000 operating system and the associated applications, just as though you were using the original hardware. In most cases, no changes of the software are required. The Charon-HPA emulated systems run the same binary HP3000 and HP9000 code and the same I/O drivers as the original hardware. This is illustrated in the following image:
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