Effect of System Workload on Error Latency: An Experimental Study

摘要

In this paper we have established a methodology for determining and characterizing error latency. The method is based on real workload data gathered by an experiment instrumented on a VAX 11/780 during the normal workload cycle of the installation. This is the first attempt at jointly studying error latency and workload variations in a full production system. Distributions of error latency were generated by seeding errors under varying workload conditions. A family of error latency distributions so generated illustrate that error latency varies by a 1 to 10 (hours) ratio between high and low workloads. The methods is general and can be applied to any system.