Responsive Computer Systems

Responsive Computer Systems: Steps Towards Fault-Tolerant Real-Time Systems provides an extensive treatment of the most important issues in the design of modern Responsive Computer Systems. It lays the groundwork for a more comprehensive model that allows critical design issues to be treated in ways that more traditional disciplines of computer research have inhibited. It breaks important ground in the development of a fruitful, modern perspective on computer systems as they are currently developing and as they may be expected to develop over the next decade. Audience: An interesting and important road map to some of the most important emerging issues in computing, suitable as a secondary text for graduate level courses on responsive computer systems and as a reference for industrial practitioners.

For the second time the International Workshop on Responsive Com puter Systems has brought together a group of international experts from the fields of real-time computing, distributed computing, and fault tolerant systems. The two day workshop met at the splendid facilities at the KDD Research and Development Laboratories at Kamifukuoka, Saitama, in Japan on October 1 and 2, 1992. The program included a keynote address, a panel discussion and, in addition to the opening and closing session, six sessions of submitted presentations. The keynote address "The Concepts and Technologies of Depend able and Real-time Computer Systems for Shinkansen Train Control" covered the architecture of the computer control system behind a very responsive, i. e. , timely and reliable, transport system-the Shinkansen Train. It has been fascinating to listen to the operational experience with a large fault-tolerant computer application. "What are the Key Paradigms in the Integration of Timeliness and Reliability?" was the topic of the lively panel discussion. Once again the pro's and con's of the time-triggered versus the event-triggered paradigm in the design of a real-time systems were discussed. The eighteen submitted presentations covered diverse topics about important issues in the design of responsive systems and a session on progress reports about leading edge research projects. Lively discussions characterized both days of the meeting. This volume contains the revised presentations that incorporate some of the discussions that occurred during the meeting.

Artificial Intelligence and Object-Oriented Technologies to Searching: An Algorithmic Tour

Responsive Computing brings together in one place important contributions and state-of-the-art research results in this rapidly advancing area. Responsive Computing serves as an excellent reference, providing insight into some of the most important issues in the field.

NATO's Division of Scientific and Environmental Affairs sponsored this Advan ced Study Institute because it was felt to be timely to cover this important and challengjng subject for the first time in the framework of NATO's ASI programme. The significance of real-time systems in everyones' life is rapidly growing. The vast spectrum of these systems can be characterised by just a few examples of increasing complexity: controllers in washing machines, air traffic control systems, control and safety systems of nuclear power plants and, finally, future military systems like the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). The import ance of such systems for the well-being of people requires considerable efforts in research and development of highly reliable real-time systems. Furthermore, the competitiveness and prosperity of entire nations now depend on the early app lication and efficient utilisation of computer integrated manufacturing systems (CIM), of which real-time systems are an essential and decisive part. Owing to its key significance in computerised defence systems, real-time computing has also a special importance for the Alliance. The early research and development activities in this field in the 1960s and 1970s aimed towards improving the then unsatisfactory software situation. Thus, the first high-level real-time languages were defined and developed: RTL/2, Coral 66, Procol, LTR, and PEARL. In close connection with these language develop ments and with the utilisation of special purpose process control peripherals, the research on real-time operating systems advanced considerably.

Computer Systems Performance Evaluation and Prediction bridges the gap from academic to professional analysis of computer performance. This book makes analytic, simulation and instrumentation based modeling and performance evaluation of computer systems components understandable to a wide audience of computer systems designers, developers, administrators, managers and users. The book assumes familiarity with computer systems architecture, computer systems software, computer networks and mathematics including calculus and linear algebra. · Fills the void between engineering practice and the academic domain's treatment of computer systems performance evaluation and assessment · Provides a single source where the professional or student can learn how to perform computer systems engineering tradeoff analysis · Allows managers to realize cost effective yet optimal computer systems tuned to a specific application

Foundations of Dependable Computing: Models and Frameworks for Dependable Systems presents two comprehensive frameworks for reasoning about system dependability, thereby establishing a context for understanding the roles played by specific approaches presented in this book's two companion volumes. It then explores the range of models and analysis methods necessary to design, validate and analyze dependable systems. A companion to this book (published by Kluwer), subtitled Paradigms for Dependable Applications, presents a variety of specific approaches to achieving dependability at the application level. Driven by the higher level fault models of Models and Frameworks for Dependable Systems, and built on the lower level abstractions implemented in a third companion book subtitled System Implementation, these approaches demonstrate how dependability may be tuned to the requirements of an application, the fault environment, and the characteristics of the target platform. Three classes of paradigms are considered: protocol-based paradigms for distributed applications, algorithm-based paradigms for parallel applications, and approaches to exploiting application semantics in embedded real-time control systems. Another companion book (published by Kluwer) subtitled System Implementation, explores the system infrastructure needed to support the various paradigms of Paradigms for Dependable Applications. Approaches to implementing support mechanisms and to incorporating additional appropriate levels of fault detection and fault tolerance at the processor, network, and operating system level are presented. A primary concern at these levels is balancing cost and performance against coverage and overall dependability. As these chapters demonstrate, low overhead, practical solutions are attainable and not necessarily incompatible with performance considerations. The section on innovative compiler support, in particular, demonstrates how the benefits of application specificity may be obtained while reducing hardware cost and run-time overhead.

5th International GI/ITG/GMA Conference, Nürnberg, September 25-27, 1991. Proceedings