Design, implementation and evaluation of ICARE: an efficient recoverable DSM

✍ Scribed by A.-M. Kermarrec; C. Morin; M. Banâtre

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 348 KB
• Volume: 28
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0038-0644
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1097-024x(19980725)28:9<981::aid-spe182>3.0.co;2-x

✦ Synopsis

In the light of the increasing throughput of local area networks, Networks Of Workstations (NOWs) which provide a Distributed Shared Memory (DSM) have become a convenient and cheaper alternative to parallel architectures in the framework of parallel scientific applications. However, the probability that a failure occurs in such a system made up of a large number of components must not be neglected, especially for long-running applications. This paper presents the design, implementation and performance evaluation of ICARE, a page-based recoverable DSM implemented on top of an ATM-based NOW running the CHORUS microkernel. ICARE relies on a Backward Error Recovery (BER) mechanism, and provides a way to combine both efficiency and high-availability. The fact that checkpoints are stored in volatile memory provides a low-cost fault-tolerance mechanism, as well as the opportunity to exploit the symbiotic relationship between the data replication implemented in DSM systems and that needed for fault-tolerance. Furthermore, ICARE efficiently implements transparent process rollback recovery. Performance evaluations show the efficiency of the ICARE prototype that implements the proposed algorithms.