Masking failures of multidimensional sensors (extended abstract)

When a computer monitors a physical process, the computer uses sensors to determine the values of the physical variables that represent the state of the process. A sensor can sometimes fail, however, and in the worst case report a value completely unrelated to the true physical value. The work described is motivated by a methodology for transforming a process control program that can not tolerate sensor failure into one that can. In this methodology, a reliable abstract sensor is created by combining information from several real sensors that measure the same physical value. To be useful, an abstract sensor must deliver reasonably accurate information at reasonable computational cost. Sensors are considered that deliver multidimensional values (e.g., location or velocity in three dimensions, or both temperature and pressure). Geometric techniques are used to derive upper bounds on abstract sensor accuracy and to develop efficient algorithms for implementing abstract sensors

Brief Announcement: Null Messages, Information and Coordination

This paper investigates how null messages can transfer information in fault-prone synchronous systems. The notion of an f-resilient message block is defined and is shown to capture the fundamental communication pattern for knowledge transfer. In general, this pattern combines both null messages and explicit messages. It thus provides a fault-tolerant extension of the classic notion of a message-chain. Based on the above, we provide tight necessary and sufficient characterizations of the generalized communication patterns that can serve to solve the distributed tasks of (nice-run) Signalling and Ordered Response

Implementing fault-tolerant sensors

One aspect of fault tolerance in process control programs is the ability to tolerate sensor failure. A methodology is presented for transforming a process control program that cannot tolerate sensor failures to one that can. Additionally, a hierarchy of failure models is identified

On the CALM principle for BSP computation

In recent times, considerable emphasis has been given to two apparently disjoint research topics: data-parallel and eventually consistent, distributed systems. In this paper we propose a study on an eventually consistent, dataparallel computational model, the keystone of which is provided by the recent finding that a class of programs exists that can be computed in an eventually consistent, coordination-free way: monotonic programs. This principle is called CALM and has been proven by Ameloot et al. for distributed, asynchronous settings. We advocate that CALM should be employed as a basic theoretical tool also for data-parallel systems, wherein computation usually proceeds synchronously in rounds and where communication is assumed to be reliable. We deem this problem relevant and interesting, especially for what concerns parallel workflow optimization, and make the case that CALM does not hold in general for dataparallel systems if the techniques developed by Ameloot et al. are directly used. In this paper we sketch how, using novel techniques, the satisfiability of the if direction of the CALM principle can still be obtained, although just for a subclass of monotonic queries

Timed Consistent Network Updates

Network updates such as policy and routing changes occur frequently in Software Defined Networks (SDN). Updates should be performed consistently, preventing temporary disruptions, and should require as little overhead as possible. Scalability is increasingly becoming an essential requirement in SDN. In this paper we propose to use time-triggered network updates to achieve consistent updates. Our proposed solution requires lower overhead than existing update approaches, without compromising the consistency during the update. We demonstrate that accurate time enables far more scalable consistent updates in SDN than previously available. In addition, it provides the SDN programmer with fine-grained control over the tradeoff between consistency and scalability.Comment: This technical report is an extended version of the paper "Timed Consistent Network Updates", which was accepted to the ACM SIGCOMM Symposium on SDN Research (SOSR) '15, Santa Clara, CA, US, June 201

Timed Analysis of Security Protocols

We propose a method for engineering security protocols that are aware of timing aspects. We study a simplified version of the well-known Needham Schroeder protocol and the complete Yahalom protocol, where timing information allows the study of different attack scenarios. We model check the protocols using UPPAAL. Further, a taxonomy is obtained by studying and categorising protocols from the well known Clark Jacob library and the Security Protocol Open Repository (SPORE) library. Finally, we present some new challenges and threats that arise when considering time in the analysis, by providing a novel protocol that uses time challenges and exposing a timing attack over an implementation of an existing security protocol