Non-blocking message total ordering protocol

Message total ordering is a critical part in active replication in order to maintain consistency among members in a fault tolerant group. The paper proposes a non-blocking message total ordering protocol （NBTOP） for distributed systems. Non-blocking property refers to that the members in a fault tolerant group keep on running independently without waiting for installing the same group view when a fault tolerant group evolves even when decision messages collide. NBTOP takes advantage of token ring as its logical control way. Members adopt re-requesting mechanism （RR） to obtain their lost decisions. Forward acknowledgement mechanism （FA） is put forth to solve decision collisions. The paper further proves that NBTOP satisfies the properties of total order, agreement, and termination. NBTOP is implemented, and its performance test is done. Comparing with the performance of Totem, the results show that NBTOP has a better total ordering delay. It manifests that non-blocking property helps to improve protocol efficiency.     

DRE中基于半主动复制的实时CORBA应用

针对实时CORBA与容错CORBA模型融合在分布式实时嵌入式系统(DRE)中存在的问题,提出基于半主动复制策略的容错模型,应用到DRE中并进行相关测试。实验结果表明,采用半主动复制策略的模型相对其他复制策略可更好地支持实时系统,并能在保证实时要求的前提下为系统提供容错支持。     

Analyzing and measuring the latency of the Totem multicast protocols

This article presents, by analysis and measurement, the probability density functions (pdfs) for the latency from origination to message delivery for the Totem multicast protocols, in the presence of message loss and token loss. The Totem protocols provide reliable totally ordered delivery of messages across single and multiple local-area networks (LANs), using a logical token-passing ring on each LAN with gateways that forward messages selectively between LANs. The analysis of the pdfs for the latency involves decomposing the latency into independent components and convolving the pdfs of those components. A comparison of the performance of single-ring, two-ring and four-ring networks shows that, with message filtering in the gateways, multiple-ring networks achieve lower mean latency, less variability, and shorter tails of the latency distribution than an equivalent single ring. The experimental measurements of the pdfs for the latency are similar to those obtained from the analytical formulas, particularly for values of the latency with high probabilities. Limitations of the analytical model, and insight into communication and scheduling of the operating system, are discussed.     

一种片上网络的低延迟容错算法

为解决片上网络容错问题,利用端到端模式设计一种低延迟可靠传输算法。该算法利用发送端主动发送冗余数据包获得较小的延迟,将数据分成包集以提高链路利用率,进一步降低延迟。发送端只在收到接收端对当前包集的确认后才发送下一个包集的数据,由此保证高可靠性。通过不断发送数据包及端到端的反馈保证传输的正确性。NS-2仿真实验结果证明,该算法延迟低,片上通信可靠性高,可以有效处理传输过程中的瞬时错误。     

A divide-and-conquer approach for content replication in WMNs

Wireless Mesh Networks (WMNs) extend Internet access in areas where the wired infrastructure is not available. A problem that arises is the congestion around gateways, delayed access latency and low throughput. Therefore, object replication and placement is essential for multi-hop wireless networks. Many replication schemes are proposed for the Internet, but they are designed for CDNs that have both high bandwidth and high server capacity, which makes them unsuitable for the wireless environment. Object replication has received comparatively less attention from the research community when it comes to WMNs. In this paper, we propose an object replication and placement scheme for WMNs. In our scheme, each mesh router acts as a replica server in a peer-to-peer fashion. The scheme exploits graph partitioning to build a hierarchy from fine-grained to coarse-grained partitions. The challenge is to replicate content as close as possible to the requesting clients and thus reduce the access latency per object, while minimizing the number of replicas. Using simulation tests, we demonstrate that our scheme is scalable, performing well with respect to the number of replica servers and the number of objects. The simulation results show that our proposed scheme has better performance compared to other replication schemes.     

An effective routing algorithm in incomplete hypercubes

An incomplete hypercube appears interesting and practical because of its relaxed restriction on the system size and possession of salient properties of complete hypercubes. The performance of incomplete hypercubes can be improved considerably by reducing communication time, which can be achieved by forwarding messages through two parallel paths between a pair of nodes. This paper presents a simple and effective two-parallel-paths routing algorithm for incomplete hypercubes which takes advantage of the flexibility provided by incomplete hypercubes, and yet prevents traffic congestion and deadlock. Simulation results indicate that the mean latency for sending large sized messages is reduced and the degree of reduction becomes larger when the system load grows. This significant reduction in latency could translate to a respectable performance improvement. This algorithm can also tolerate one fault in the system by sending duplicate copies of messages through two parallel paths with little increase in the mean latency under light-traffic load.     

Optimistic Byzantine fault tolerance

The primary concern of traditional Byzantine fault tolerance is to ensure strong replica consistency by executing incoming requests sequentially according to a total order. Speculative execution at both clients and server replicas has been proposed as a way of reducing the end-to-end latency. In this article, we introduce optimistic Byzantine fault tolerance. Optimistic Byzantine fault tolerance aims to achieve higher throughput and lower end-to-end latency by using a weaker replica consistency model. Instead of ensuring strong safety as in traditional Byzantine fault tolerance, nonfaulty replicas are brought to a consistent state periodically and on-demand in optimistic Byzantine fault tolerance. Not all applications are suitable for optimistic Byzantine fault tolerance. We identify three types of applications, namely, realtime collaborative editing, event stream processing, and services constructed with conflict-free replicated data types, as good candidates for applying optimistic Byzantine fault tolerance. Furthermore, we provide a design guideline on how to achieve eventual consistency and how to recover from conflicts at different replicas. In optimistic Byzantine fault tolerance, a replica executes a request immediately without first establishing a total order of the message, and Byzantine agreement is used only to establish a common state synchronization point and the set of individual states needed to resolve conflicts. The recovery mechanism ensures both replica consistency and the validity of the system by identifying and removing the operations introduced by faulty clients and server replicas.     

一种新的提高互联网端到端时延精度的测量方法

由于端到端网络时延的测量中存在收发时钟不同步的问题,在测量中大多是通过测往返时延来间接求得端到端时延,测试结果误差较大.本文利用主动探测方法,在互联网上通过在一端发送带有时间戳的IP数据包,在另一端记录该测量分组的到达时间戳来获得端到端的时延测量值,然后利用线性规划的方法来消除了收发时钟的初始相位差和相对频差等影响,计算出网络的端到端时延真实值.通过实例测试,结果表明该方法消除了时钟不同步带来的误差,提高了测试结果的精确度.     

Dynamic replica placement and selection strategies in data grids— A comprehensive survey

Data replication techniques are used in data grid to reduce makespan, storage consumption, access latency and network bandwidth. Data replication enhances data availability and thereby increases the system reliability. There are two steps involved in data replication, namely, replica placement and replica selection. Replica placement involves identifying the best possible node to duplicate data based on network latency and user request. Replica selection involves selecting the best replica location to access the data for job execution in the data grid. Various replica placement and selection algorithms are available in the literature. These algorithms measure and analyze different parameters such as bandwidth consumption, access cost, scalability, execution time, storage consumption and makespan. In this paper, various replica placement and selection strategies along with their merits and demerits are discussed. This paper also analyses the performance of various strategies with respect to the parameters mentioned above. In particular, this paper focuses on the dynamic replica placement and selection strategies in the data grid environment.     

A study of unpredictability in fault-tolerant middleware

In enterprise applications relying on fault-tolerant middleware, it is a common engineering practice to establish service-level agreements (SLAs) based on the 95th or the 99th percentiles of the latency, to allow a margin for unexpected variability. However, the extent of this unpredictability has not been studied systematically. We present an extensive empirical study of unpredictability in 16 distributed systems, ranging from simple transport protocols to fault-tolerant, middleware-based enterprise applications, and we show that the inherent unpredictability in the systems examined arises from at most 1% of the remote invocations. In the normal, fault-free operating mode most remote invocations have a predictable end-to-end latency, but the maximum latency follows unpredictable trends and is comparable with the time needed to recover from a fault. The maximum latency is not influenced by the system’s workload, cannot be regulated through configuration parameters and is not correlated with the system’s resource consumption. The high-latency outliers (up to three orders of magnitude higher than the average latency) have multiple causes and may originate in any component of the system. However, after filtering out 1% of the invocations with the highest recorded response-times, the latency becomes bounded with high statistical confidence (p < 0.01). We have verified this result on different operating systems (Linux 2.4, Linux 2.6, Linux-rt, TimeSys), middleware platforms (CORBA and EJB), programming languages (C, C++ and Java), replication styles (active and warm passive) and applications (e-commerce and online gaming). Moreover, this phenomenon occurs at all the layers of middleware-based systems, from the communication protocols to the business logic.     

A reinforcement learning-based routing for delay tolerant networks

Delay Tolerant Reinforcement-Based (DTRB) is a delay tolerant routing solution for IEEE 802.11 wireless networks which enables device to device data exchange without the support of any pre-existing network infrastructure. The solution utilizes Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning techniques to learn about routes in the network and forward/replicate the messages that produce the best reward. The rewarding process is executed by a learning algorithm based on the distances between the nodes, which are calculated as a function of time from the last meetings. DTRB is a flooding-based delay tolerant routing solution. The simulation results show that DTRB can deliver more messages than a traditional delay tolerant routing solution does in densely populated areas, with similar end-to-end delay and lower network overhead.     

RMP: fault-tolerant group communication

Based on a logical token ring, this communication protocol ensures total message ordering and atomic delivery, so all group members maintain an identical view of ordered events. RMP (Reliable Multicast Protocol) is an efficient multicast protocol for general distributed applications based on the logical token ring approach. The novelty of RMP is that it simultaneously multicasts an ordered message and implicitly rotates the token position on the ring. There is no token transfer message in the normal multicast. For message atomicity, our protocol minimizes control messages and communication costs while incurring a relatively short delay. In contrast to other token algorithms, RMP does not risk losing the token when the token site fails. Without requiring extra overhead, our approach guarantees total ordering of messages and message atomicity-either every member receives a message, or none do     

基于令牌的共享白板一致性算法

在设计电视会议的共享白板系统时,保证所有用户的感觉一致性是非常重要的.文章首先给出了三种一致性的定义,然后提出了一个基于令牌的共享白板通讯算法,算法的核心是使用一个循环传递的令牌来分配白板绘图消息的局部序号和全局序号,控制消息的发送和处理的顺序,从而保证用户白板在外观上的一致.最后说明了算法对于三种一致性的满足.     

Real-time fault tolerant operation of the 802.5 token ring

Scheduling a hard real time application on a token ring requires that the delays to capture the token be known. Previous studies considered only a small subset of the token ring mechanisms in schedulability analyses. In this paper, we study the influence of three types of faults on the time to capture the token. These are token losses, failures of the active monitor and cable faults. We also show the influence of the stack mechanism on the delay to capture the token. The paper ends with an evaluation of these delays in various ring configurations in which the transmission speed, token hold time and ring latency are variables. We conclude that the token ring may be very difficult to schedule for hard real time applications because we do not know if other mechanisms or combinations of phenomena can introduce additional delays that make the operation of the ring unpredictable in the present state of knowledge.     

Applicability of sub graph centrality to improve data accessibility among peers in MANETs

Data sharing plays an essential role in many of the mobile ad-hoc network (MANET) applications that exhibits collaborative behavior. In such applications, replication is used as a foremost and fundamental technique to improve data availability. However, due to the dynamic nature of the network, data replication becomes more intricate in MANET. To alleviate this problem, we have proposed a mechanism which not only enhances data accessibility, replicates data in a minimum number of nodes, relocates shared data on the prediction of mobility of replica holder and in addition, data can be accessed by any node in a minimum number of hops. In our approach, we have prefaced mathematical concept known as minimum dominating set and sub graph centrality principle to decide the number of replicas both in static and dynamic environment. Simulation results when compared with the existing mechanisms shows that the response time or data access delay is reduced, client can access the data from the server in a minimum number of hops, and consequently the number of forwarded messages to access the data are greatly reduced thus making our network energy efficient.     

CAN总线通信过程的Stateflow建模与仿真

控制器局域网（CAN）是一种广泛应用于实时通信系统中的现场总线,其建模和仿真是对CAN总线通信性能进行综合评估和优化设计的必要手段。针对CAN总线通信性能指标优化设计问题,文章采用Simulink／Stateflow仿真工具对CAN通信过程的建模方法进行了深入研究,给出了仿真模型并对仿真实例进行了研究分析,得到了信息到达时间间隔,通道忙闲率,高优先级发送引起的受阻率等网络特性对总线通信性能吞吐量和平均端到端延时的影响,从而有效地分析了CAN总线的实时通信性能,提出了优化通信性能指标设计时重要参数的选取方法。     

基于定向广播的AODV控制报文抑制研究

AODV路由协议是通过全向广播请求报文和定时广播Hello报文来建立Ad Hoc网络的路由,但在路由发现阶段需要广播发送大量的请求控制报文,导致了协议性能的下降。针对此问题,提出了一种新的基于定向广播的路由协议,该协议通过定向广播发送请求报文,并根据节点的移动性动态调整Hello报文的发送时间间隔来减少报文的发送。理论分析和仿真结果表明,该方法能有效地减少控制报文的数量,减少路由负载,也显著提高了端到端时延、平均投递率等性能参数。     

吸收协议-一个选播路由协议

选播是一种很有用的通信模式．由于在复制服务器、移动IP等多个应用领域的需求．使越来越多的人关注怎样更好的实现选播．提出了一个选播路由协议一吸收协议．协议在提供最小端到端延迟路由前提下支持多路路由．以平衡网络流量．改善网络链路利用率．协议通过从选播成员开始的吸收过程．使网络中每个节点都有一条或者多条到选播地址的路由指向到该节点端到端延迟最小的选播成员．吸收协议原理简单，开销小．易于实现．不依赖其他路由协议．修改、升级不会影响其他路由协议．     

Experimenting Active Reliable Multicast on Application-Aware Grids

The ever growing needs for computation power and accesses to critical resources have launched in a very short time a large number of grid projects and many realizations have been done on dedicated network infrastructures. On Internet-based infrastructures, however, there are very few distributed or interactive applications (MPI, DIS, HLA, remote visualization) because of insufficient end-to-end performances (bandwidth, latency, for example) to support such an interactivity. For the moment, computing resources and network resources are viewed separately in the Grid architecture and we believe this is the main bottleneck for achieving end-to-end performances. In this paper, we promote the idea of a Grid infrastructure able to adapt to the applications needs and thus define the idea of application-aware Grid infrastructures where the network infrastructure is tightly involved in both the communication and processing process. We report on our early experiences in building application-aware components based on active networking technologies for providing a low latency and a low overhead multicast framework for applications running on a computational Grid. Performance results from both simulations and implementation prototypes confirm that introducing application-aware components at specific location in the network infrastructure can succeed in providing not only performances for the end-users but also new perspectives in building a communication framework for computational Grids.