Abstract
A general method for introducing fault-tolerance in a hierarchical operating system is presented here. First, a hierarchically structured conventional (non-fault-tolerant) operating system is described. In order to transform it into a fault-tolerant system, each conventional machine is augmented with an Error Detection and Recovery (EDR) mechanism, thus obtaining a corresponding fault-tolerant machine. It is determined that, from the standpoint of fault-tolerance, three types of machines can be identified: physical, kernel, and process type. The EDR mechanism makes a conventional machine fault-tolerant by transforming its conventional operations into fault-tolerant operations. To provide this transformation, a set of operations are defined for the EDR mechanism. A model for fault-tolerant operations is developed, such that known techniques for fault-tolerance (e.g. recovery block, N-version programming, etc.) can be represented as particular cases. The general fault-tolerant operating system obtained is a hierarchy of fault-tolerant machines, with the physical type machines at the bottom, followed by the kernel type machines above them, and the process type as the upper machines.
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Soneru, M.D., Huen, W.H. (1984). The Introduction of Fault-Tolerance in a Hierarchical Operating System. In: Großpietsch, KE., Dal Cin, M. (eds) Fehlertolerierende Rechensysteme. Informatik-Fachberichte, vol 84. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69698-5_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-69698-5_7
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