An Isochronous Testing Strategy for Hierarchical Adaptive Distributed System-Level Diagnosis

Distributed System-level diagnosis allows the fault-free components of a fault-tolerant distributed system to determine which components of the system are faulty and which are fault-free. The time it takes for nodes running the algorithm to diagnose a new event is called the algorithm's latency. In this paper we present a new distributed system-level diagnosis algorithm which presents a latency of O(log N) testing rounds, for a system of N nodes. A previous hierarchical distributed system-level diagnosis algorithm, Hi-ADSD, presents a latency of O(log2N) testing rounds. Nodes are grouped in progressively larger logical clusters for the purpose of testing. The algorithm employs an isochronous testing strategy that forces all fault-free nodes to execute tests on clusters of the same size each testing round. This strategy is based on two main principles: a tested node must test its tester in the same round; a node only accepts tests according to a lexical priority order. We present formal proofs that the algorithm's latency is at most 2log N – 1 testing rounds and that the testing strategy of the algorithm leads to the execution of isochronous tests. Simulation results are shown for systems of up to 64 nodes.