J. Xu
F. Di Giandomenico
A. Bondavalli
University of Newcastle upon Tyne,1994.
This paper discusses the issue of hardware and software fault tolerance in distributed computing environments as well as issues related to efficiency and flexibility. A set of new fault-tolerant architectures is presented, and a detailed dependability analysis of these architectures together with an efficiency evaluation is performed. The proposed architectural solutions are based on the assumption that the distributed supporting environments under consideration are highly varying and they would support multiple competing applications associated with different fault-tolerant architectures, thereby exhibiting dynamic service characteristics. Stress is placed on adaptation Ñ the major goal of designs of these new architectures is to attempt the adaptive execution of redundant components so as to minimize hardware resource consumption and shorten the response time, as much as possible, for a required level of fault tolerance.