Selective Notification: Combining Forms of Decoupled Addressing for Internet-Scale Command and Alert Dissemination

By using an information survivability control system, the survivability of critical networked information systems can be enhanced using a variety of fault-tolerance mechanisms. Essential to the effective implementation of such mechanisms is communication from the error detection component to the various application nodes in the network. In this paper, we introduce a technique called Selective Notification for the communication of commands and alerts in very large distributed systems. The technique combines intentional addressing, content addressing and sender qualification in a single decoupled event-delivery mechanism. We show that effective targeted command and alert dissemination is achievable, and that Selective Notification allows systems to apply a wide range of event connectivity policies. We present details of an implementation of Selective Notification and the results of performance assessment experiments. Based on our preliminary performance data, we conclude that Selective Notification can be used to support survivability architectures in Internet-sized systems.