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Resilient multi-core systems: a hierarchical formal model for N-variant executions

Published: 13 April 2009 Publication History

Abstract

This research presents a hierarchical formal model capable of providing adjustable levels of service and quality of assurance, which is especially suitable for multi-core processor systems. The multi-layered architecture supports multiple levels of fault detection, masking, and dynamic load balancing. Unlike traditional fault-tolerant architectures that treat service requirements uniformly, each layer of the assured architecture implements a different level of services and information assurances. The system achieves load balancing by moving between layers of different complexity. Functionalities at different layers range from essential services necessary to satisfy the most stringent requirements for information assurance and system survivability at the lowest layer, to increasingly sophisticated functionalities with extended capabilities and complexity at higher layers. Low-layer functionalities can be used to monitor the behavior of high-layer functionalities.
At each layer of the assured architecture, N-variant implementations make efficient use of multi-core hardware. The degree of the introduced redundancy in each layer determines the mix of faults that can be tolerated. The use of hybrid fault models allows us to consider fault types ranging from benign faults to Byzantine faults. Our framework extends recent work in N-variant systems for intrusion detection, which are demonstrated to be special cases. Furthermore, it allows the movement in a tradeoff space between (1) the levels of assurance provided at different layers, (2) the levels of redundancy used at specific layers, which determine the fault types that can be tolerated, and (3) the desired run-time overhead.

References

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A. Avizienis, The Methodology of N-version Programming, Software Fault Tolerance, edited by M. Lyu, John Wiley&Sons, 1995.
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M. H. Azadmanesh, and R. M. Kieckhafer, Exploiting Omissive Faults in Synchronous Approximate Agreement, IEEE Trans. Computers, 49(10), pp. 1031--1042, Oct. 2000.
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B. Cox, et. al., N-Variant Systems A Secretless Framework for Security through Diversity, 15th USENIX Security Symposium, Vancouver, BC, August 2006
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C. M. Jeffery, and J. O. Figueiredo, Towards Byzantine Fault Tolerance in Many-core Computing Platforms, 13th IEEE International Symposium on Pacific Rim Dependable Computing, 2007.
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F. J. Meyer, and D. K. Pradhan, Consensus with Dual Failure Modes, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 214--222, April, 1991.
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A. Nguyen-Tuong, et. al., Security through Redundant Data Diversity, 38th IEEE/IFPF International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks, Dependable Computing and Communications Symposium. Anchorage, June 2008.
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B. Salamat, et. al., Multi-Variant Program Execution: Using Multi-Core Systems to Defuse Buffer- Overflow Vulnerabilities, International Conference on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems, Vol. 00, pp. 843--848, 2008.
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P. Thambidurai, and Y.-K. Park, Interactive Consistency with Multiple Failure Modes, Proc. 7th Symp. on Reliable Distributed Systems, Columbus, OH, pp. 93--100, Oct. 1988.

Cited By

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  • (2013)First passage time and first passage percolation models for analysing network resilience and effective strategies in strategic information warfare researchInternational Journal of Information and Computer Security10.1504/IJICS.2013.0582195:4(334-358)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2013
  • (2010)A Hierarchical Formal Framework for Adaptive N-variant Programs in Multi-core SystemsProceedings of the 2010 IEEE 30th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops10.1109/ICDCSW.2010.30(7-12)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2010

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cover image ACM Other conferences
CSIIRW '09: Proceedings of the 5th Annual Workshop on Cyber Security and Information Intelligence Research: Cyber Security and Information Intelligence Challenges and Strategies
April 2009
952 pages
ISBN:9781605585185
DOI:10.1145/1558607
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 13 April 2009

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Author Tags

  1. N-variant
  2. N-variant execution
  3. adaptability
  4. fault models
  5. multi-core
  6. resilience
  7. security
  8. survivability

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Cited By

View all
  • (2013)First passage time and first passage percolation models for analysing network resilience and effective strategies in strategic information warfare researchInternational Journal of Information and Computer Security10.1504/IJICS.2013.0582195:4(334-358)Online publication date: 1-Dec-2013
  • (2010)A Hierarchical Formal Framework for Adaptive N-variant Programs in Multi-core SystemsProceedings of the 2010 IEEE 30th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems Workshops10.1109/ICDCSW.2010.30(7-12)Online publication date: 21-Jun-2010

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