Enhanced Markov-based model for the availability analysis of distributed software and hardware systems

Markov model for a simple two-host system used in determining the system availability of homogeneously distributed software and hardware systems is based on the concept of containing only hardware and software in each host. This system is found to be quite slow and tedious resulting to delays in computing system availability at a given time. Present research aim at stochastically analysing the availability of heterogeneously distributed software and hardware systems with software redundancy in standby, using an enhanced model to address the problem of low availability. The low availability is achieved through identifying the components responsible for mitigating the availability and define actions that can improve the availability of the systems. Markov method is used to develop expressions for system steady-state probabilities and system availability respectively. The model is implemented using Java programming language. To make the computation and analysis of systems availability more efficient, numerical examples are presented in order to illustrate the performance of the model.