Detecting Hidden Shared Dependencies via Covert Channels

Designs for high availability using redundant subsystems rely on the independence of replicated subsystems to work. However, increasing prevalence of multiple administrative domains in distributed systems obscures dependency information. In this paper, we propose a new technique to detect hidden shared dependencies. We utilize the insight that shared resources often give rise to covert channels that can then be used to detect the presence of the shared resource itself. Through experiments, we show that the technique is feasible for an important subclass of dependencies shared hidden bottlenecks.