A Standards-Based Approach to Implementing High Availability Services in Mission-Critical Systems for Newly Developed and Legacy Software

摘要

Mission-critical system designers are faced with the reality that "speed to capability" often comes in the form of integrating new functionality into legacy software designs. These systems demand an application management approach that provides a framework from which highly reliable services for both legacy and developmental software can be constructed. Such an approach will allow system developers to focus their shrinking resources on crafting solutions that implement capability requirements specific to their domain. The Aegis program has developed a solution that exploits the synergy between the requirements of mission-critical systems and carrier-grade commercial systems. The concept has been delivered successfully to a number of U.S. and Foreign Military consumers. It employs a standards-based approach to application management that provides a framework from which legacy and developmental tactical applications, as well as commercial software components, can be configured, controlled, and monitored. The implementation also satisfies redundancy requirements, and addresses the high performance failover needs that are critical to maintaining system availability. This paper will recommend an approach based on commercial standards to address the high availability (HA) requirements of a modern mission-critical system. It will also address the challenges faced in adopting a commercial standard that integrates Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and Government off-the-shelf (GOTS) components and legacy designs, as well as opportunities to provide future capability upgrades.