[openib-general] IB: I don't like what I'm seeing.

Thu Apr 1 07:27:12 PST 2004

On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, Clauser, Milton wrote:

> Steve, I'm not convinced that it's possible to check for all possible bit
> errors in hardware or otherwise.  Perhaps I'm showing my ignorance, but can
> you check for a bit error caused, for example, by a cosmic ray hitting a
> processor during an arithmetic operation?

Of course it's not. So when it gets important enough you do what they do 
on space platforms. All this stuff can be quantified, risk assesed, 
decisions taken on design. 

> So, again I ask the hard question (not rhetorically) how do you decide
> what's worth checking, in order to give you adequate confidence in the
> result?

Historically, netowrks have needed the end-to-end software checking. Don't 
know why this is, but it is, in spite of the best efforts of a lot of very 
smart people. 

ron

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