Evaluation of a new algorithm for fault-tolerant clock synchronization

Synchronous clocks are an essential requirement for a variety of distributed system applications. Many of these applications are safety-critical and require fault tolerance. The paper presents a general probabilistic clock synchronization model. This model is uniformly probabilistic, incorporating random message delays, random clock drifts; and random fault occurrences. The model allows faults in any system component and of any type. Also, a new sliding window clock synchronization algorithm (SWA) that provides increased fault tolerance is proposed. The comprehensive model is used for an evaluation of SWA which shows that SWA is capable of tolerating significantly more faults than other algorithms and that the synchronization tightness is as good or better than that of other algorithms