Task management control apparatus and method having redundant processing comparison

Abstract

An input / output control apparatus including: a unit that controls input / output of data relating to a computation of a plurality of processors in response to an access request from a second input / output unit and an access request from a first input / output unit which requires higher reliability than said second input / output unit, and orders at least one of a plurality of processors to perform a computation relating to the access request from said first input / output unit away from the computation relating to the access request from said second input / output unit in case of that said first input / output unit issued an access request, so that a same computation is made by said plurality of processors; a unit that compares the results of said computations relative to the access request from said first input / output unit provided from said plurality of processors; and a unit that allows the data associated with said computations of said processors to be output on the basis of said compared results.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 11 / 447,724, filed Jun. 7, 2006. This application relates to and claims priority from Japanese Patent Application No. 2005-170275, filed on Jun. 10, 2005 and No. 2005-190874, filed on Jun. 30, 2005.The entirety of the contents and subject matter of all of the above is incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to a task management apparatus for control apparatus, input / output control apparatus, information control apparatus, task management method, input / output controlling method, and information controlling method.[0003]The fields of Electronics and information technology have been developed, and the functions required for single apparatus have become complicated and compounded. The development of these fields and the function's complexity and compounding tendency made great contributions to widening the application of programmable elec...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0020]Thus, it is hard for the future control system comprised of a plurality of processors to synchronize the processor outputs. In order to check up on the outputs of the processors and diagnose the good or bad operation of the processors, it is necessary to take a method for checking the outputs irrespective of the synchronous or asynchronous outputs of the processors. In addition, in order to compare the outputs of the processors, it is necessary for the plurality of processors to execute a single process. Thus, the processing performance per processor can be reduced to half as much as the usual processing performance.

[0036]In addition to the reliability such as safety, it is possible to enhance the convenience by increasing the speed of the network processing and the normal control processing that does not need such reliability as to get by comparing the outputs from the processors.

Problems solved by technology

Since the means for realizing these two factors has the property of trade-off, it was difficult to satisfy both the availability and safety.

Although a partial unit that takes charge of the availability and another partial unit responsible for the safety have respectively been provided to produce an apparatus, the apparatus has become not only large-sized, but also reduced in its reliability because the human factors become unreliable due to the multiplicity and complication of the running / maintenance operations.

The availability is a key component for the control of equipment, but the safety is weighty in the protection of equipment.

Thus, the apparatus has become not only large-sized, but reduced in its reliability because the human factors become unreliable due to the multiplicity and complication of the running / maintenance operations.

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