Autonomous spacecraft maintenance study group

A plan to incorporate autonomous spacecraft maintenance (ASM) capabilities into Air Force spacecraft by 1989 is outlined. It includes the successful operation of the spacecraft without ground operator intervention for extended periods of time. Mechanisms, along with a fault tolerant data processing system (including a nonvolatile backup memory) and an autonomous navigation capability, are needed to replace the routine servicing that is presently performed by the ground system. The state of the art fault handling capabilities of various spacecraft and computers are described, and a set conceptual design requirements needed to achieve ASM is established. Implementations for near term technology development needed for an ASM proof of concept demonstration by 1985, and a research agenda addressing long range academic research for an advanced ASM system for 1990s are established

Rewriteable optical disk recorder development

A NASA program to develop a high performance (high rate, high capability) rewriteable optical disk recorder for spaceflight applications is presented. An expandable, adaptable system concept is proposed based on disk Drive modules and a modular Controller. Drive performance goals are 10 gigabyte capacity are up to 1.8 gigabits per second rate with concurrent I/O, synchronous data transfer, and 2 to 5 years operating life in orbit. Technology developments, design concepts, current status, and future plans are presented

Distributed Virtual System (DIVIRS) Project

As outlined in our continuation proposal 92-ISI-50R (revised) on contract NCC 2-539, we are (1) developing software, including a system manager and a job manager, that will manage available resources and that will enable programmers to program parallel applications in terms of a virtual configuration of processors, hiding the mapping to physical nodes; (2) developing communications routines that support the abstractions implemented in item one; (3) continuing the development of file and information systems based on the virtual system model; and (4) incorporating appropriate security measures to allow the mechanisms developed in items 1 through 3 to be used on an open network. The goal throughout our work is to provide a uniform model that can be applied to both parallel and distributed systems. We believe that multiprocessor systems should exist in the context of distributed systems, allowing them to be more easily shared by those that need them. Our work provides the mechanisms through which nodes on multiprocessors are allocated to jobs running within the distributed system and the mechanisms through which files needed by those jobs can be located and accessed

An Interactive Distributed Simulation Framework With Application To Wireless Networks And Intrusion Detection

In this dissertation, we describe the portable, open-source distributed simulation framework (WINDS) targeting simulations of wireless network infrastructures that we have developed. We present the simulation framework which uses modular architecture and apply the framework to studies of mobility pattern effects, routing and intrusion detection mechanisms in simulations of large-scale wireless ad hoc, infrastructure, and totally mobile networks. The distributed simulations within the framework execute seamlessly and transparently to the user on a symmetric multiprocessor cluster computer or a network of computers with no modifications to the code or user objects. A visual graphical interface precisely depicts simulation object states and interactions throughout the simulation execution, giving the user full control over the simulation in real time. The network configuration is detected by the framework, and communication latency is taken into consideration when dynamically adjusting the simulation clock, allowing the simulation to run on a heterogeneous computing system. The simulation framework is easily extensible to multi-cluster systems and computing grids. An entire simulation system can be constructed in a short time, utilizing user-created and supplied simulation components, including mobile nodes, base stations, routing algorithms, traffic patterns and other objects. These objects are automatically compiled and loaded by the simulation system, and are available for dynamic simulation injection at runtime. Using our distributed simulation framework, we have studied modern intrusion detection systems (IDS) and assessed applicability of existing intrusion detection techniques to wireless networks. We have developed a mobile agent-based IDS targeting mobile wireless networks, and introduced load-balancing optimizations aimed at limited-resource systems to improve intrusion detection performance. Packet-based monitoring agents of our IDS employ a CASE-based reasoner engine that performs fast lookups of network packets in the existing SNORT-based intrusion rule-set. Experiments were performed using the intrusion data from MIT Lincoln Laboratories studies, and executed on a cluster computer utilizing our distributed simulation system

Data Replication Strategies for Fault Tolerance and Availability on Commodity Clusters

Recent work has shown the advantages of using persistent memory for transaction processing. In particular, the Vista transaction system uses recoverable memory to avoid disk I/O, thus improving performance by several orders of magnitude. In such a system, however, the data is safe when a node fails, but unavailable until it recovers, because the data is kept in only one memory. In contrast, our work uses data replication to provide both reliability and data availability while still maintaining very high transaction throughput. We investigate four possible designs for a primary-backup system, using a cluster of commodity servers connected by a write-through capable system area network (SAN). We show that logging approaches outperform mirroring approaches, even when communicating more data, because of their better locality. Finally, we show that the best logging approach also scales well to small shared-memory multiprocessors

Fault Tolerant Real Time Dynamic Scheduling Algorithm For Heterogeneous Distributed System

Fault-tolerance becomes an important key to establish dependability in Real Time Distributed Systems (RTDS). In fault-tolerant Real Time Distributed systems, detection of fault and its recovery should be executed in timely manner so that in spite of fault occurrences the intended output of real-time computations always take place on time. Hardware and software redundancy are well-known e ective methods for faulttolerance, where extra hard ware (e.g., processors, communication links) and software (e.g., tasks, messages) are added into the system to deal with faults. Performances of RTDS are mostly guided by eciency of scheduling algorithm and schedulability analysis are performed on the system to ensure the timing constrains. This thesis examines the scenarios where a real time system requires very little redundant hardware resources to tolerate failures in heterogeneous real time distributed systems with point-to-point communication links. Fault tolerance can be achieved by..

Research on fully distributed data processing systems

Issued as Quarterly progress reports, nos. 1-11, and Project report, Project no. G-36-64

Space station data system analysis/architecture study. Task 2: Options development, DR-5. Volume 2: Design options

The primary objective of Task 2 is the development of an information base that will support the conduct of trade studies and provide sufficient data to make key design/programmatic decisions. This includes: (1) the establishment of option categories that are most likely to influence Space Station Data System (SSDS) definition; (2) the identification of preferred options in each category; and (3) the characterization of these options with respect to performance attributes, constraints, cost and risk. This volume contains the options development for the design category. This category comprises alternative structures, configurations and techniques that can be used to develop designs that are responsive to the SSDS requirements. The specific areas discussed are software, including data base management and distributed operating systems; system architecture, including fault tolerance and system growth/automation/autonomy and system interfaces; time management; and system security/privacy. Also discussed are space communications and local area networking

Cloud Computing and Grid Computing 360-Degree Compared

Cloud Computing has become another buzzword after Web 2.0. However, there are dozens of different definitions for Cloud Computing and there seems to be no consensus on what a Cloud is. On the other hand, Cloud Computing is not a completely new concept; it has intricate connection to the relatively new but thirteen-year established Grid Computing paradigm, and other relevant technologies such as utility computing, cluster computing, and distributed systems in general. This paper strives to compare and contrast Cloud Computing with Grid Computing from various angles and give insights into the essential characteristics of both.Comment: IEEE Grid Computing Environments (GCE08) 200