The Office of Naval Research initiative on ultradependable multicomputers and electronic systems

The US Office of Naval Research initiative in ultradependable multicomputers and electronic systems is focused on the development of novel techniques for achieving high dependability in parallel and distributed systems. Some of the approaches being funded through the initiative and their role in the program as a whole are surveyed. The objective of the program is to achieve greater effectiveness and efficiency (than traditional massive redundancy) through the following: increased understanding of physical failure modes and their effects in real systems; increased sensitivity to the structure, semantics, and requirements of real applications; exploitation of the inherent redundancy in parallel systems; and examination of hardware/software tradeoffs. To achieve these objectives, an integrated program has been constructed around four major components: measurement and modeling of real systems; software-based methods such as robust algorithms; efficient hardware-based methods and real-time systems