NASA, Carnegie Mellon Tap Industry Partners for Consortium

Carnegie Mellon University, NASA Ames Research Center and 12 information technology companies have banded together to form the High Dependability Computing Consortium to eliminate failures in critical computing systems, such as air traffic control, space exploration, Internet communication and health care.


The group will work to promote and conduct research on developing dependable, affordable software systems, according to NASA.


The consortium's industry partners include Adobe Systems Inc., Compaq Computer Corp., Hewlett-Packard Corp., IBM Corp., ILOG Inc., Marimba Inc., Microsoft Corp., Novell Inc., SGI Inc., Siebel Systems Inc., Sybase Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc.


Earlier this year, NASA funded a Carnegie Mellon proposal to create the consortium with a grant of $500,000. Since then, the university has been enrolling partners and, together with NASA, will formalize a research agenda.


Dependable systems technology is necessary to insure the software created for space missions, defense, health care, electronic commerce or any systems affecting human safety or well-being functions properly.


The consortium represents the first concrete step in Carnegie Mellon's plan to develop a presence in the Silicon Valley. The university last January signed a memorandum of understanding with NASA establishing a partnership to explore the creation of a branch campus at Moffett Field, home of the Ames center.