Constructing replicated systems using processors with point-to-point communication links
Paul Ezhilchelvan, S. K. Shrivastava, Alan Tully · 1989
Replicated processing with majority voting is a well known method of achieving fault tolerance. We consider the problem of constructing a distributed system composed of an arbitrarily large number of N-modular redundant (NMR) nodes, where each node itself is composed of N, N = 2m + 1 and m ≥ 1, processing and voting elements. Advanced microprocessors, such as Inmos Transputers, provide fast serial communication links for inter-processor communication, making it possible to construct large networks of processors. We describe how replicated processing with majority voting can be achieved for such processor networks. This paper will present the overall systems architecture, including voting and NMR synchronization algorithms specially developed to exploit fast point to point communication facilities.