TECHNICAL ARTICLE Performance Simulation of a Dependable Distributed System

The aim of our research is to develop a distributed system platform that supports a variety of tasks. Currently, we are implementing Internet applica-tions on the system, including a service redirector, firewall, and web applications. These applications have different levels of dependability requirements. Depending on their criticality, a single task may execute on one or more computer nodes. Software-implemented fault-tolerant proto-cols are used to detect the disagreement among replicas. A reconfiguration protocol is used to identify faulty nodes according to the fault reports from other fault-tolerant protocols and to reallo-cate their tasks to other working nodes. As a part of the project, this work focuses on the implemen-tation and simulation of the system and the firewall application. Data transfer throughput of the system is measured and analyzed. The results are being used in supporting our development of the overall system