Evaluating fault-tolerant system designs using FAUmachine

Potyra, Stefan; Sieh, Volkmar; Cin, Mario Dal

doi:10.1145/1316550.1316559

Cited by 36 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…In order to assess RAMpage's effectiveness, we conducted a series of automated tests with FAUmachine [13], a virtual machine environment specifically designed for hardware-error injection. FAUmachine can be configured to inject single-bit errors at arbitrary memory locations.…”

Section: A Effectiveness: Virtually and Really Broken Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

RAMpage: Graceful Degradation Management for Memory Errors in Commodity Linux Servers

Schirmeier

Neuhalfen

Korb

et al. 2011

2011 IEEE 17th Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing

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Abstract-Memory errors are a major source of reliability problems in current computers. Undetected errors may result in program termination, or, even worse, silent data corruption. Recent studies have shown that the frequency of permanent memory errors is an order of magnitude higher than previously assumed and regularly affects everyday operation.Often, neither additional circuitry to support hardwarebased error detection nor downtime for performing hardware tests can be afforded. In the case of permanent memory errors, a system faces two challenges: detecting errors as early as possible and handling them while avoiding system downtime.To increase system reliability, we have developed RAMpage, an online memory testing infrastructure for commodity x86-64-based Linux servers, which is capable of efficiently detecting memory errors and which provides graceful degradation by withdrawing affected memory pages from further use.We describe the design and implementation of RAMpage and present results of an extensive qualitative as well as quantitative evaluation.

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Section: A Effectiveness: Virtually and Really Broken Hardwarementioning

confidence: 99%

RAMpage: Graceful Degradation Management for Memory Errors in Commodity Linux Servers

Schirmeier

Neuhalfen

Korb

et al. 2011

2011 IEEE 17th Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing

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“…An example is FAUMACHINE (Sieh et al, [6]), which provides access to a large part of its x86 simulator's state, and enables various FI methods, including, e.g., harddisk faults. But despite the advantage of providing access to the backend's full capabilities, this class of tools is characterized by severe maintainability issues: Deep stateaccess usually results in deep intrusion into the backend's code-base.…”

Section: State Of the Artmentioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting Fault-Injection Experiment-Platform Architectures

Schirmeier

Hoffmann

Kapitza

et al. 2011

2011 IEEE 17th Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing

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Abstract-Many years of research on dependable, faulttolerant software systems yielded a myriad of tool implementations for vulnerability analysis and experimental validation of resilience measures. Trace recording and fault injection are among the core functionalities these tools provide for hardware debuggers or system simulators, partially including some means to automate larger experiment campaigns.We argue that current fault-injection tools are too highly specialized for specific hardware devices or simulators, and are developed in poorly modularized implementations impeding evolution and maintenance. In this article, we present a novel design approach for a fault-injection infrastructure that allows experimenting researchers to switch simulator or hardware backends with little effort, fosters experiment code reuse, and retains a high level of maintainability.

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“…This includes tools for single-node systems, where the Linux kernel and applications run inside a single user-levelLinux process [2,3,18]. In [16], fault injection is performed using a software-implemented emulator of PC hardware. This tool is also focused on single-CPU systems.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The use of fault injection to test distributed systems [19,7,8,6] and leveraging virtualization for fault injection [2,3,18,16,9,12] have been presented in previous works. However, unique features of our work include: A) a comprehensive presentation of all aspects of a practical testing infrastructure, and B) ad etailed case study of the use of the infrastructure to validate a system with multiple advanced fault tolerance features.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Virtualization to Validate Fault-Tolerant Distributed Systems

Hsu

Gallagher

et al. 2010

Informatics

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Asynchronous events and complexs ystem state distributed across independent nodes makee xposure and diagnosis of flaws in distributed systems a challenge. The difficulties are exacerbated when the goal is to validate fault tolerance mechanisms that are activated only by the occurrence of errors, which are, by nature, rare. Va lidation of fault tolerance mechanisms is often done by injecting faults that emulate the actual faults and ''stress''t he functionality of the resilience mechanisms. Va lidation campaigns lasting days and involving thousands of fault injections are often necessary.W ep resent an infrastructure that combines virtualization and software-implemented fault injection to automate validation campaigns and support the analysis of the behavior of a distributed system under test. Virtualization enables: 1) aflexible fault injector capable of emulating a wide variety of faults, and 2) am echanism for autonomously recovering faulty nodes so that the campaign can continue running on a target system that is fully functional. As ac ase study we use this infrastructure to validate a Byzantine-fault-tolerant cluster manager.O ver 1280 hours of fault injections yielded the exposure of 11 unique flaws in the cluster manager.

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Evaluating fault-tolerant system designs using FAUmachine

Cited by 36 publications

References 10 publications

RAMpage: Graceful Degradation Management for Memory Errors in Commodity Linux Servers

RAMpage: Graceful Degradation Management for Memory Errors in Commodity Linux Servers

Revisiting Fault-Injection Experiment-Platform Architectures

Using Virtualization to Validate Fault-Tolerant Distributed Systems

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