Enhanced fault recovery methods for protected traffic services in GMPLS networks

Les noves tecnologies a la xarxa ens permeten transportar, cada cop més, grans volums d' informació i trànsit de xarxa amb diferents nivells de prioritat. En aquest escenari, on s'ofereix una millor qualitat de servei, les conseqüències d'una fallada en un enllaç o en un node esdevenen més importants. Multiprotocol Lavel Switching (MPLS), juntament amb l'extensió a MPLS generalitzat (GMPLS), proporcionen mecanismes ràpids de recuperació de fallada establint camins, Label Switch Path (LSPs), redundants per ser utilitzats com a camins alternatius. En cas de fallada podrem utilitzar aquests camins per redireccionar el trànsit. El principal objectiu d'aquesta tesi ha estat millorar alguns dels actuals mecanismes de recuperació de fallades MPLS/GMPLS, amb l'objectiu de suportar els requeriments de protecció dels serveis proporcionats per la nova Internet. Per tal de fer aquesta avaluació s'han tingut en compte alguns paràmetres de qualitat de protecció com els temps de recuperació de fallada, les pèrdues de paquets o el consum de recursos. En aquesta tesi presentem una completa revisió i comparació dels principals mètodes de recuperació de fallada basats en MPLS. Aquest anàlisi inclou els mètodes de protecció del camí (backups globals, backups inversos i protecció 1+1), els mètodes de protecció locals i els mètodes de protecció de segments. També s'ha tingut en compte l'extensió d'aquests mecanismes a les xarxes òptiques mitjançant el pla de control proporcionat per GMPLS. En una primera fase d'aquest treball, cada mètode de recuperació de fallades és analitzat sense tenir en compte restriccions de recursos o de topologia. Aquest anàlisi ens dóna una primera classificació dels millors mecanismes de protecció en termes de pèrdues de paquets i temps de recuperació. Aquest primer anàlisi no és aplicable a xarxes reals. Per tal de tenir en compte aquest nou escenari, en una segona fase, s'analitzen els algorismes d'encaminament on sí tindrem en compte aquestes limitacions i restriccions de la xarxa. Es presenten alguns dels principals algorismes d'encaminament amb qualitat de servei i alguna de les principals propostes d'encaminament per xarxes MPLS. La majoria dels actual algorismes d'encaminament no tenen en compte l'establiment de rutes alternatives o utilitzen els mateixos objectius per seleccionar els camins de treball i els de protecció. Per millorar el nivell de protecció introduïm i formalitzem dos nous conceptes: la Probabilitat de fallada de la xarxa i l'Impacte de fallada. Un anàlisi de la xarxa a nivell físic proporciona un primer element per avaluar el nivell de protecció en termes de fiabilitat i disponibilitat de la xarxa. Formalitzem l'impacte d'una fallada, quant a la degradació de la qualitat de servei (en termes de retard i pèrdues de paquets). Expliquem la nostra proposta per reduir la probabilitat de fallada i l'impacte de fallada. Per últim fem una nova definició i classificació dels serveis de xarxa segons els valors requerits de probabilitat de fallada i impacte. Un dels aspectes que destaquem dels resultats d'aquesta tesi és que els mecanismes de protecció global del camí maximitzen la fiabilitat de la xarxa, mentre que les tècniques de protecció local o de segments de xarxa minimitzen l'impacte de fallada. Per tant podem assolir mínim impacte i màxima fiabilitat aplicant protecció local a tota la xarxa, però no és una proposta escalable en termes de consum de recursos. Nosaltres proposem un mecanisme intermig, aplicant protecció de segments combinat amb el nostre model d'avaluació de la probabilitat de fallada. Resumint, aquesta tesi presenta diversos mecanismes per l'anàlisi del nivell de protecció de la xarxa. Els resultats dels models i mecanismes proposats milloren la fiabilitat i minimitzen l'impacte d'una fallada en la xarxa.

Fault detection service architecture for grid computing systems

The ability to tolerate failures while effectively exploiting the grid computing resources in an scalable and transparent manner must be an integral part of grid computing infrastructure. Hence, fault-detection service is a necessary prerequisite to fault tolerance and fault recovery in grid computing. To this end, we present an scalable fault detection service architecture. The proposed fault-detection system provides services that monitors user applications, grid middlewares and the dynamically changing state of a collection of distributed resources. It reports summaries of this information to the appropriate agents on demand or instantaneously in the event of failures.

Minimum reconfiguration for fault tolerant manipulators

When a robotic manipulator is fault tolerant it is beneficial to study the configurations which tolerate non-catastrophic locked joint failures with a minimum relative change for the joint velocities. This problem is addressed using the properties of the condition number of the Jacobian matrix. The relationship between the faults within the joints of the manipulators and the condition number of the Jacobean matrix is used to introduce the optimal configurations for fault recovery. These optimum configurations require a minimum reconfiguration for fault tolerance of robotics manipulators. Then these configurations are studied for a 4-DOF planar manipulator to validate the proposed framework.

Optimal actuator fault tolerance for static nonlinear systems based on minimum output velocity jump

Fault tolerance for a class of non linear systems is addressed based on the velocity of their output variables. This paper presents a mapping to minimize the possible jump of the velocity of the output, due to the actuator failure. The failure of the actuator is assumed as actuator lock. The mapping is derived and it provides the proper input commands for the healthy actuators of the system to tolerate the effect of the faulty actuator on the output of the system. The introduced mapping works as an optimal input reconfiguration for fault recovery, which provides a minimum velocity jump suitable for static nonlinear systems. The proposed mapping is validated through different case studies and a complementary simulation. In the case studies and the simulation, the mapping provides the commands to compensate the effect of different faults within the joints of a robotic manipulator. The new commands and the compare between the velocity of the output variables for the health and faulty system are presented.

Multiple actuator fault tolerance for static nonlinear systems based on minimum velocity jump

Static nonlinear systems are common when the model of the kinematics of mechanical or civil structures is analyzed for instance kinematics of robotic manipulators. This paper addresses the maximum effort toward fault tolerance for any number of the locked actuators failures in static nonlinear systems. It optimally reconfigures the inputs via a mapping that maximally accommodates the failures. The mapping maps the failures to an extra action of healthy actuators that results to a minimum jump for the velocity of the output variables. Then from this mapping, the minimum jump of the velocity of the output is calculated. The conditions for a zero velocity jump of the output variables are discussed. This shows that, when the conditions of fault tolerance are maintained, the proposed framework is capable of fault recovery not only at fault instances but also at the whole output trajectory. The proposed mapping is validated by three case studies.

Task completion with partially-failed manipulators

An effort to maintain the availability of partially failed manipulator is addressed based on redundant trajectories obtained by primitive constraints. The objective is to facilitate the existing manipulators to continue their point to point motion tasks when a non catastrophic fault occurs into a joint. The fault is assumed as a joint locked failure. This is achieved through fault to primitive constraints mapping which gives the primitive constraints due to the faults. Then they are applied to update the manipulator constraints for the trajectory planning. Then it purposes a new trajectory in the case of availability. Finally the method is applied for a 6DOF manipulator and validated under a fault scenario within a simulation study and the results are presented.

Detecção e recuperação de falhas para a máquina de redução de grafos PEWS-AM

Web services are software units that allow access to one or more resources, supporting the deployment of business processes in the Web. They use well-defined interfaces, using web standard protocols, making possible the communication between entities implemented on different platforms. Due to these features, Web services can be integrated as services compositions to form more robust loose coupling applications. Web services are subject to failures, unwanted situations that may compromise the business process partially or completely. Failures can occur both in the design of compositions as in the execution of compositions. As a result, it is essential to create mechanisms to make the implementation of service compositions more robust and to treat failures. Specifically, we propose the support for fault recovery in service compositions described in PEWS language and executed on PEWS-AM, an graph reduction machine. To support recovery failure on PEWS-AM, we extend the PEWS language specification and adapted the rules of translation and reduction of graphs for this machine. These contributions were made both in the model of abstract machine as at the implementation level

Selective SWIFT-R. A Flexible Software-Based Technique for Soft Error Mitigation in Low-Cost Embedded Systems

Commercial off-the-shelf microprocessors are the core of low-cost embedded systems due to their programmability and cost-effectiveness. Recent advances in electronic technologies have allowed remarkable improvements in their performance. However, they have also made microprocessors more susceptible to transient faults induced by radiation. These non-destructive events (soft errors), may cause a microprocessor to produce a wrong computation result or lose control of a system with catastrophic consequences. Therefore, soft error mitigation has become a compulsory requirement for an increasing number of applications, which operate from the space to the ground level. In this context, this paper uses the concept of selective hardening, which is aimed to design reduced-overhead and flexible mitigation techniques. Following this concept, a novel flexible version of the software-based fault recovery technique known as SWIFT-R is proposed. Our approach makes possible to select different registers subsets from the microprocessor register file to be protected on software. Thus, design space is enriched with a wide spectrum of new partially protected versions, which offer more flexibility to designers. This permits to find the best trade-offs between performance, code size, and fault coverage. Three case studies have been developed to show the applicability and flexibility of the proposal.

The study into fault tolerance based on rollback-recovery for clusters

The provision of fault tolerance is an important aspect to the success of distributed and cluster computing. Through this research , a transparent, autonomic and efficient fault tolerant facility was designed and implemented; thereby relieving the burden of a user having to handle and react to the failure of an application.

Fault Current Limiter Using YBCO Coated Conductor-The Limiting Factor and Its Recovery Time

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Development and test of resistive superconducting fault current limiter; acting time and its recovery conditions

Resistive-type of superconducting fault current limiters (RSFCL) have been developed for medium voltage class aiming to operate at 1 MVA power capacity and short time recovery (< 2 s). A RSFCL in form of superconducting modular device was designed and constructed using 50 m-length of YBCO coated conductor tapes for operation under 1 kV / 1 kA and acting time of 0.1 s. In order to increase the acting time the RSFCL was combined with an air-core reactor in parallel to increase the fault limiting time up to 1 s. The tests determined the electrical and thermal characteristics of the combined resistive/ inductive protection unit. The combined fault current limiter reached a limiting current of 583 A, corresponding to a limiting factor of 3.3 times within an acting time of up to 1 s.

Saturated core high-temperature superconducting fault current limiters as an alternative to conventional series reactors in a distribution grid

Series reactors are used in distribution grids to reduce the short-circuit fault level. Some of the disadvantages of the application of these devices are the voltage drop produced across the reactor and the steep front rise of the transient recovery voltage (TRV), which generally exceeds the rating of the associated circuit breaker. Simulations were performed to compare the characteristics of a saturated core High-Temperature Superconducting Fault Current Limiter (HTS FCL) and a series reactor. The design of the HTS FCL was optimized using the evolutionary algorithm. The resulting Pareto frontier curve of optimum solution is presented in this paper. The results show that the steady-state impedance of an HTS FCL is significantly lower than that of a series reactor for the same level of fault current limiting. Tests performed on a prototype 11 kV HTS FCL confirm the theoretical results. The respective transient recovery voltages (TRV) of the HTS FCL and an air core reactor of comparable fault current limiting capability are also determined. The results show that the saturated core HTS FCL has a significantly lower effect on the rate of rise of the circuit breaker TRV as compared to the air core reactor. The simulations results are validated with shortcircuit test results.

Effect of stacking fault energy on the dynamic recrystallization during hot working of FCC metals: A study using processing maps

The influence of stacking fault energy (SFE) on the mechanism of dynamic recrystallization (DRX) during hot deformation of FCC metals is examined in the light of results from the power dissipation maps. The DRX domain for high SFE metals like Al and Ni occurred at homologous temperature below 0·7 and strain rates of 0·001 s−1 while for low SFE metals like Cu and Pb the corresponding values are higher than 0·8 and 100 s−1. The peak efficiencies of power dissipation are 50% and below 40% respectively. A simple model which considers the rate of interface formation (nucleation) involving dislocation generation and simultaneous recovery and the rate of interface migration (growth) occurring with the reduction in interface energy as the driving force, has been proposed to account for the effect of SFE on DRX. The calculations reveal that in high SFE metals, interface migration controls DRX while the interface formation is the controlling factor in low SFE metals. In the latter case, the occurrence of flow softening and oscillations could be accounted for by this model.

Improving fault detection and reliability in FDDI networks

FDDI (Fibre Distributed Data Interface) is a 100 Mbit/s token ring network with two counter rotating optical rings. In this paper various possible faults (like lost token, link failures, etc.) are considered, and fault detection and the ring recovery process in case of a failure and the reliability mechanisms provided are studied. We suggest a new method to improve the fault detection and ring recovery process. The performance improvement in terms of station queue length and the average delay is compared with the performance of the existing fault detection and ring recovery process through simulation. We also suggest a modification for the physical configuration of the FDDI networks within the guidelines set by the standard to make the network more reliable. It is shown that, unlike the existing FDDI network, full connectivity is maintained among the stations even when multiple single link failures occur. A distributed algorithm is proposed for link reconfiguration of the modified FDDI network when many successive as well as simultaneous link failures occur. The performance of the modified FDDI network under link failures is studied through simulation and compared with that of the existing FDDI network.