Fault tolerance for token-based synchronization protocols
Frank Mueller · 2005
The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, a general method to support fault tolerance for token-based synchronization protocols in distributed systems is introduced. Contrary to traditional approaches, this new method uses a decentralized approach to recover from node failures under fail-stop conditions. Neither does it require a centralized manager nor broadcast support. Second, the method is demonstrated by adopting the protocol for mutual exclusion by Naimi et al. [21] to tolerate faults. An implementation of the new protocol in a distributed execution environment provides fault detection with fault recovery and false alarm detection. Experiments with different fault injection scenarios underline the feasibility of this new approach. Measurements indicate that our protocol inflicts no overhead in the absence of faults and a factor 5 to 10 overhead in the presence of faults. 1. Introduction Executing in a distributed environment requires synchronization to coordinate pha...