An Integrated Approach to the Design of Fault Tolerant Computing Systems

Abstract

This paper offers an introduction to a research effort in fault tolerant computer architecture which has been organized at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL). It is intended as an overview of several topics which have been isolated for study, and as an indication of preliminary undertakings with regards to one particular topic. This first area of concentration lnvolves the systematic design of fault tolerant computing systems via a multi-level approach. Efforts are being initiated also in the areas of diagnosis of microprogrammable processors via firmware, fault data management across levels of virtual machines, development of a methodology for realizing a firmware hardcore on a variety of hosts, and delineation of a minimal set of resources for the design of a practical host for a multi-level fault tolerant computing system. The research is being conducted under the auspices of Project Beta at USL.