Distributed Fault-Tolerance of Tree Structures

Tree structures, as the interconnection structure in networks of many processing elements, have interesting features such as regularity ease of expansion, simple routing, simple addressing, suitability for VLSI/WSI implementation, etc. Distributed fault tolerance of these networks is considered. It is assumed that in these structures, there does not exist any central failure-free entity for providing services such as diagnosis of faulty components, system reconfiguration after failure, control, or coordination among the processing elements. Every processing element is able to diagnose the condition of every other node or internode communication paths via a truly distributed scheme.