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Availability of a distributed computer system with failures

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Summary

A model for distributed systems with failing components is presented. Each node may fail and during its recovery the load is distributed to other nodes that are up. The model assumes periodic checkpointing for error recovery and testing of the status of other nodes for the distribution of load. We consider the availability of a node, which is the proportion of time a node is available for processing, as the performance measure. A methodology for optimizing the availability of a node with respect to the checkpointing and testing intervals is given. A decomposition approach that uses the steady-state flow balance condition to estimate the load at a node is proposed. Numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the usefulness of the technique. For the case in which all nodes are identical, closed form solutions are obtained.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université de Paris-Sud, 91405, Orsay, France

    Erol Gelenbe

  2. Department of Mathematics, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA, USA

    David Finkel

  3. Systems Design and Analysis Group, Department of Computer Science, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Satish K. Tripathi

Authors
  1. Erol Gelenbe
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  2. David Finkel
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  3. Satish K. Tripathi
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Additional information

This research was performed while David Finkel and Satish Tripathi were visiting ISEM. Satish Tripathi's research was supported in part by grants from NSF (grant no. DCR-84-05235) and NASA (grant no. NAG5-235), and by Université de Paris-Sud

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Gelenbe, E., Finkel, D. & Tripathi, S.K. Availability of a distributed computer system with failures. Acta Informatica 23, 643–655 (1986). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00264311

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00264311

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