Self-Adjusting Indexing Techniques for Communication-Induced Checkpointing Protocols

Abstract

Communication-induced checkpointing (CIC) protocols can be used to prevent the domino effect. Among such protocols, those belonging to the index-based category associate checkpoints with sequence numbers in a way that checkpoints with an equal sequence number are ensured to be consistent. Specifically, index-based protocols must cooperate with their underlying indexing methods to achieve their goal. The adopted indexing scheme makes a great impact on the number of forced checkpoint the protocol will take. Moreover, an indexing method exhibit different performance for different degrees of heterogeneity imposed on a distributed system. All existing index-based protocols only employ a fixed indexing scheme, however, and thus cannot suit themselves well for all kinds of computing environments. In this paper, we propose two new indexing techniques that can adjust themselves according to the extent of present system heterogeneity. Those new methods are also justified by a simulation study in the text.