Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ncrlnk!ncrcae!hubcap!bart
From: bart@speedy.cs.wisc.edu (Bart Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.parallel
Subject: Re: System: North America [a massively parallel PD computer?]
Summary: a useful worm
Message-ID: <3909@hubcap.UUCP>
Date: 15 Dec 88 14:04:09 GMT
Sender: fpst@hubcap.UUCP
Lines: 16
Approved: parallel@hubcap.clemson.edu

I've had a pair of students build a "useful" worm package.  The idea is
that you can take any program, and wrap it in a worm.  The goal is to make
forward progress on a computation in the face of failures.  The worm
keeps some predetermined number of "segments" (copies) running and restarts
new ones as necessary.  The restarted worms are from recent checkpoints.

We have this running now 4.3BSD UNIX machines, currently HP Bobcats (68020
based).

We'll have a paper and a releasable version soon.  Note that this currently
only works for single-process computations.

						--bart miller
						  uw-madison cs dept
						  bart@cs.wisc.edu
						  ...!uwvax!bart