Solving Consensus Using Structural Failure Models

Failure models characterise the expected component failures in fault-tolerant computing. In the context of distributed systems, a failure model usually consists of two parts: a functional part specifying in what way individual processing entities may fail and a structural part specifying the potential scope of failures within the system. Such models must be expressive enough to cover all relevant practical situations, but must also be simple enough to allow uncomplicated reasoning about fault-tolerant algorithms. Usually, an increase in expressiveness complicates formal reasoning, but enables more accurate models that allow to improve the assumption coverage and resilience of solutions. In this paper, we introduce the structural failure model class DiDep that allows to specify directed dependent failures, which, for example, occur in the area of intrusion tolerance and security. DiDep is a generalisation of previous classes for undirected dependent failures, namely the general adversa...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: SRDS
• Authors: Timo Warns, Felix C. Freiling, Wilhelm Hasselbring
• Keywords: Component Failures, Failure Model, SRDS 2006, Undirected Dependent Failures