Reliable Distributed Systems

The domains of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) and Information Technology (IT) are converging. Driven by the need for increased compute performance, as well as the need for increased connectivity and runtime flexibility, IT hardware, such as microprocessors and Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), as well as software abstraction layers are introduced to CPS. These systems and components are being enhanced for the execution of hard real-time applications. This enables the convergence of embedded and IT: Embedded workloads can be executed reliably on top of IT infrastructure. This is the dawn of Reliable Distributed Systems (RDSs), a technology that combines the performance and cost of IT systems with the reliability of CPSs. The Fabric is a global RDS runtime environment, weaving the interconnections between devices and enabling abstractions for compute, communication, storage, sensing & actuation. This paper outlines the vision of RDS, introduces the aspects required for implementing RDSs and the Fabric, relates existing technologies, and outlines open research challenges.