Pre-run-time scheduling for object-based, concurrent, real-time applications

The complexity of computer systems in many application areas has increased rapidly in the last decade. In order to deal with this complexity, application programs should be constructed by layering reusable modules. Therefore, an object-based design and implementation methodology is advocated. In addition, dependability of these computer systems is very important, and thus timeliness has to be guaranteed. In this paper, a pre-run-time scheduling approach is proposed to guarantee timeliness for computer systems in an almost fully predictable environment and in the presence of faults. The advantages of pre-run-time scheduling over other strategies to guarantee timeliness are discussed. The approach is used to schedule applications with a novel combination of timing and functional constraints. In addition, a novel characteristic of the approach is the enhancement of inherent parallelism of an application in order to find a schedule