New Design Techniques for Enhancing Fault Tolerant Cots Software Wrappers

Abstract

Component-based systems can be built by assembling components developed independently of the systems. Middleware code that connects the components is usually needed to assemble them into a system. The ordinary role of the middleware is simple glue code, but there is an opportunity to design it as a safety wrapper to control the integration of the components to help assure system dependability. This paper investigates some architectural designs for the safety wrappers using a nuclear protection system example. It integrates new fault-tolerant techniques based on diagnostic assertions and diverse redundancy into the middleware designs. This is an attractive option where complete trust in component reliability is impossible or costly to achieve.