Reliability analysis and fault tolerance for hypercube multi-computer networks

A multi-computer system (MCS) offers the high speed and throughput needed in solving computing-intensive problems. Two main components constitute a MCS. These are the processing elements (PEs) and the interconnection network (IN). A faulty IN can lead to data losses and/or throughput degradation. Hence, it is necessary to consider the fault tolerance and reliability aspects in assessing the efficacy of INs. This paper provides coverage of the fault tolerance and reliability aspects of hypercube multi-computer networks (HCNs). In particular, we cover three broad aspects: task-based reliability, fault-tolerant routing, and communication in faulty HCNs. Our coverage includes introducing the particular HC architecture, analyze its reliability and assess its fault tolerance. The analysis provided in the paper is deemed helpful to HCN designers in making informed decisions about the appropriate approaches that can be used to assess the reliability and fault tolerance of existing HCNs.