Lightweight checkpointing for concurrent ML

Transient faults that arise in large-scale software systems can often be repaired by re-executing the code in which they occur. Ascribing a meaningful semantics for safe re-execution in multithreaded code is not obvious, however. For a thread to re-execute correctly a region of code, it must ensure that all other threads that have witnessed its unwanted effects within that region are also reverted to a meaningful earlier state. If not done properly, data inconsistencies and other undesirable behavior may result. However, automatically determining what constitutes a consistent global checkpoint is not straightforward since thread interactions are a dynamic property of the program. In this paper, we present a safe and efficient checkpointing mechanism for Concurrent ML (CML) be used to recover from transient faults. We introduce a new linguistic abstraction called stabilizers that permits the specification of per-thread monitors and the restoration of globally consistent checkpoints. ...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: JFP
• Authors: Lukasz Ziarek, Suresh Jagannathan
• Keywords: Consistent Global Checkpoint, JFP 2010, Meaningful Earlier State, Safe