Pinho, Luís MiguelVasques, FranciscoWellings, Andy2014-01-302014-01-3020040922-64431573-1383http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/3521Building reliable real-time applications on top of commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components is not a straightforward task. Thus, it is essential to provide a simple and transparent programming model, in order to abstract programmers from the low-level implementation details of distribution and replication. However, the recent trend for incorporating pre-emptive multitasking applications in reliable real-time systems inherently increases its complexity. It is therefore important to provide a transparent programming model, enabling pre-emptive multitasking applications to be implemented without resorting to simultaneously dealing with both system requirements and distribution and replication issues. The distributed embedded architecture using COTS components (DEAR-COTS) architecture has been previously proposed as an architecture to support real-time and reliable distributed computer-controlled systems (DCCS) using COTS components. Within the DEAR-COTS architecture, the hard real-time subsystem provides a framework for the development of reliable real-time applications, which are the core of DCCS applications. This paper presents the proposed framework, and demonstrates how it can be used to support the transparent replication of software components.engReal-time systemsSoftware-based fault toleranceDistributed computer-controlled systemsTransparent replicationjournal article10.1023/B:TIME.0000018248.18519.46