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SSS-PC
The Dependable Scalable Operating System

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Operating System that integrates PCs and servers.

SSS-PC project team developped the next generation operating system `SSS-PC' (pronounced `three ess pc') Ver. 1.0 which runs on personal computers (PC). SSS-PC is being developped at Information Science Laboratory, Ltd. and will be released as its main product in the future.

SSS-PC is the dependable scalable operating system feturing unique new technologies such as Memory Based Communication Facility (MBCF) and Information Disclosure Mechanism (IDM) in addition to basic kernel functions such as memory protection and multitasking.

SSS-PC has task migration functionality and a unique scheduling system based on Free Marked Mechanism (FMM) and lets users perform maintenance jobs such as machine replacement, hardware component inspection and dynamic system reconfiguration without stopping running applications. The project team is working hard to alpha release SSS-PC by the end of 2003. The project team will reinforce SSS-PC with high dependable features to make it a foundation platform of dependable computing.
Below are poster pictures describing SSS-PC's features and performance evaluations. PDF versions are availble.

[PDF of first panel (800KB)] [PDF of second panel (258KB)]
[feature of SSS-PC] [performance of SSS-PC]

The SSS-PC project is supported by the Information-technology Promotion Agency, Japan (IPA) since 1994. From July 2002, SSS-PC is being developped at Information Science Laboratory, Ltd. , wich was established as a part of promotion effort for industry and academy tie-up, with support from National Institute of Informatics of japan


Project Background and Goal

Integrating wide spread PCs and work stations to a cluster system constructs a low priced, higly-dependable high-performance computer system. However, existing operating systems lacked functionality, performance and scalability for such purpose. The project team tackled the issue and developped a new operating system SSS-PC. Modern society's richness is backed by a lot of computer system all over the places. Computer system's high dependability and high availability is one of primal requirements from such society. SSS-PC offers not only high performance system but also higly-depnedable and higly-available system. SSS-PC can integrate upto a hundred thousands of PCs and server machines.

SSS-PC is the successor of SSS-CORE. SSS-PC is a brand-new all-Japanese general-purpose OS developed from scratch. It is the first general-purpose operating system produced in japan since the TRON project had been promoted. It turns workstations on LAN into a high-performance parallel machine. This is a remarkable advantage of SSS-PC over other OS's.
SSS-PC is applicable to a cluster with as many as a hundred thousand of PCs, workstations or servers, as to a single machine.


Pictures below show test clusters with PentiumIII or Xeon PC servers or Sun workstations running SSS-PC Ver.1.0. Click on pictures to view larger images.

PCs WS's PCs and WS's

These are the project teams's test and verification cluster system.


Features of SSS-PC

The features of SSS-PC are explained here. It contains the following topics.


Performance

Performance evaluations of SSS-PC are provided here.

www.ssscore.org has SSS-CORE's performance evaluation from various angles. You can see summarized results of the evaluation such as:


Papers

Papers on SSS-PC can be found here.
The paper below helps you understand MBCF.


www.ssscore.org has papers on SSS-CORE. Classification of papers is as follows.


Demonstrations

SSS-PC's demonstrations are provided.


www.ssscore.org has demonstrations of SSS-CORE. The following programs were developed to demonstrate the high performance of SSS-CORE.


Project Plan for the Future

SSS-PC Ver.1.0 features Free Marker Mechanism scheduling (*1) and task migration function to realize system maintenance without applications and system suspension and dynamic system reconfiguration. With the help of these features, SSS-PC will implement Redundant Decision-by-majority function to make itself a foundation platform for dependable computing. With the function, application outputs are decided through decision by majority process among multiple instances of identical application tasks to make the best use of multiple computers avilable. SSS-PC provides software development environment compatible with other OSes such as Linux or FreeBSD. Using the environment, the project team parallelize some of existing softwares and implement killer application for SSS-PC.

(*1) The study of 'Free Market Mechanism' scheduling is supported by Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST).


Official Mascot

This cat is the official mascot of SSS-PC. It is named `Manekikko'. It was designed from a Japanese lucky cat `manekineko'.

[SSS-PC mascot (48KB)]

The URL of this home page is: http://www.ssspc.org/
Mail to <info@ssspc.org>.
© 1998-2003 SSS-PC Project Team.