Can we rely on COTS microkernels for building fault-tolerant systems?

Author

Salles, Frédéric ; Arlat, Jean ; Fabre, Jean-Charles

Author_Institution

Lab. d´´Autom. et d´´Anal. des Syst., CNRS, Toulouse, France

fYear

1997

fDate

29-31 Oct 1997

Firstpage

189

Lastpage

194

Abstract

This paper addresses the use of COTS microkernels in fault-tolerant, and, to some extent, safety-critical systems. The main issue is to assess the behavior of such components, upon which application software relies, in the presence of faults. Using fault injection, it is possible to classify the behavior of the functional primitives. From the results obtained fault containment mechanisms can be provided as a new API to complement the basic detection mechanisms of the microkernel. Some preliminary experiments with the Chorus microkernel are also reported

Keywords

application program interfaces; distributed processing; operating system kernels; program diagnostics; real-time systems; safety-critical software; software fault tolerance; API; COTS microkernels; Chorus microkernel; Commercial-Off-The-Shelf components; application software; commercial executives; dependability; detection mechanisms; embedded fault-tolerant systems; fault containment mechanisms; fault injection; fault-tolerant systems; functional primitives; safety-critical systems; Aerospace control; Aircraft; Application software; Certification; Control systems; Fault detection; Fault tolerance; Fault tolerant systems; Performance analysis; Rail transportation;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Distributed Computing Systems, 1997., Proceedings of the Sixth IEEE Computer Society Workshop on Future Trends of

Conference_Location

Tunis

ISSN

1071-0485

Print_ISBN

0-8186-8153-5

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/FTDCS.1997.644723

Filename

644723