METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR FACILITATING PROCESS MIGRATION

A system that migrates a process from a source computer system to a target computer system. During operation, the system generates a checkpoint for the process on the source computer system, wherein the checkpoint includes a kernel state for the process. Next, the system swaps out dirty pages of a user context for the process to a storage device which is accessible by both the source computer system and the target computer system and transfers the checkpoint to the target computer system. The system then loads the kernel state contained in the checkpoint into a skeleton process on the target computer system. Next, the system swaps in portions of the user context for the process from the storage device to the target computer system and resumes execution of the process on the target computer system.