ROC-1: hardware support for recovery-oriented computing

Abstract

We introduce the ROC-1 hardware platform, a large-scale cluster system designed to provide high availability for Internet service applications. The ROC-1 prototype embodies our philosophy of recovery-oriented computing (ROC) by emphasizing detection and recovery from the failures that inevitably occur in Internet service environments, rather than simple avoidance of such failures. ROC-1 promises greater availability than existing server systems by incorporating four techniques applied from the ground up to both hardware and software: redundancy and isolation, online self-testing and verification, support for problem diagnosis and concern for human interaction with the system.