Reliability Analysis of Time-Constrained Distributed Software*

When analyzing the reliability of a time-constrained distributed software, the Markov state space is often used. However, many evaluation methods are not fast and the size of Markov state space is very large. In this paper, we propose an approach for the reliability analysis of distributed software with time constraint. The approach proposed is based on the principle of distributed program reliability analysis, and combines the reliability-preserving reduction with breath-first manner and fast reliability evaluation algorithm (FREA). We propose a new analysis model, called Reliability Analysis with Degree-n and Redundancy Reduction (RADR), and calculate transmission time of data files needed in the file spanning tree (FST). A simple distributed timeconstrained system is discussed to illustrate the feasibility of the proposed approach. Key-Words: Reliability analysis, Distributed software, File spanning tree, Time-constrained distributed software, Response time, Transmission time