Analytically modeling a fault-tolerant messaging protocol

We present a simple analytical model for communication over a discarding network using a fault-tolerant messaging protocol. Our technique is an improvement over existing methods in that it accurately models both packet retransmission and the multiple types of packets exchanged between sender and receiver in order to guarantee message delivery and idempotence. The model can be applied to any network and routing strategy; we consider both circuit switching and wormhole routing on three different network topologies. In all cases, the model agrees closely with simulated results.