Fault-Tolerant Parallel and Distributed Systems

The most important uses of computing in the future will be those related to the global “digital convergence” where all computing becomes digital and inter-networked. This convergence will be propelled by new and advanced applications in storage, searching, retrieval and exchanging of information in a myriad of forms. All of these will place heavy demands on large parallel and distributed computer systems because these systems have high intrinsic failure rates. The challenge to the computer scientist is to build a system that is inexpensive, accessible and dependable. The chapters in this book provide insights into many of these issues and others that will challenge researchers and applications developers.
Included among these topics are fault-tolerance in communication protocols for distributed systems (including synchronous and asynchronous group communication), methods and approaches for achieving fault-tolerance in distributed systems (such as those used in networks of workstations), dependable cluster systems and scalable-coherent-interfaces-based local-area multi-processors, general models and features of distributed safety-critical systems built from commercial off-the-shelf components as well as service dependability in telecomputing systems, dependable parallel systems for real-time processing of video signals, and embedding in faulty multi-processor systems, broadcasting, system-level testing techniques, on-line detection and recovery from intermittent and permanent faults. The book is a collection of chapters with contributions by experts working on fault-resilient applications. The numerous techniques and methods covered are of relevance to researchers, developers and graduate students.