What is checkpointing in computational architecture?

Checkpointing in computational architecture is a technique used to enable fault tolerance in computing systems. It involves periodically saving the current state of a program or computation to disk or another nonvolatile storage medium. This allows the program to resume execution from the last saved checkpoint, rather than starting over from the beginning, in the event of a failure or interruption. Checkpointing is commonly used in high-performance computing and distributed systems, where long-running computations or simulations are susceptible to hardware or software errors. By maintaining a history of checkpoints, it enables the system to recover from where it left off, sharply reducing the amount of time needed for debugging and improving overall system performance.

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