Prevention of Replication Induced failures in the Context of Integrated Modular Avionics

Peter van der Stok

Appeared in: Embedded System Applications, ed. C. Baron, J.C. Geffroy, G. Motet, Kluwer Academic Publishers, pp 153-170 (1997).

ABSTRACT

The motivation for Integrated Modular Avionics (IMA) is presented. The required high availability and improved maintenance efficiency dictate requirements on the consistency of data used by replicated software components. It is shown that a reliable multicast facility is needed to fulfill the consistency requirement. Propagation of failures should be prevented. An additional consistency requirement states that software components should consider the same resources as failed at the same time. It is shown how a membership algorithm can satisfy this requirement. The time bounds on communication and failure detection propagation are calculated.

Postscript