An Architectural Overview Of The Alpha Real-Time Distributed Kernel
Raymond K. Clark, E. Douglas Jensen, Franklin Reynolds · 1997
Alpha is a non-proprietary experimental operating system kernel which extends the realtime domain to encompass distributed applications, such as for telecommunications, factory automation, and defense. Distributed real-time systems are inherently asynchronous, dynamic, and non-deterministic, and yet are nonetheless mission-critical.The increasing complexity and pace of these systems precludes the historical reliance solely on human operators for assuring system dependability under uncertainty. Traditional real-time OS technology is based on attempting to assert or impose determinism of not just the ends but also the means, for centralized low-level sampled-data monitoring and control, with an insufficiency of hardware resources. Conventional distributed OS technology is primarily based on two-party client/server hierarchies for explicit resource sharing in networks of autonomous users. These two technological paradigms are special cases which cannot be combined and scaled up...