An advanced performance analysis of self-stabilizing protocols: stabilization time with transient faults during convergence

A self-stabilizing protocol is a brilliant framework for fault tolerance. It can recover from any number and any type of transient faults and eventually converge to its intended behavior. Performance of a self-stabilizing protocol is usually measured by stabilization time: the time required to complete the convergence to its intended behavior under the assumption that no new fault occurs during the convergence. But a self-stabilizing protocol has no guarantee to complete the convergence if faults are frequently occurred. This paper brings new light to efficiency analysis of stabilization. The efficiency is evaluated with consideration for faults occurring during the convergence. To show the feasibility and effectiveness of the approach, this paper applies the approach to the maximal matching protocol.