Optimization of Two-Granularity Software Rejuvenation Policy Based on the Markov Regenerative Process

Software rejuvenation is a proactive software control technique that is used to improve a computing system performance when it suffers from software aging. In this paper, a two-granularity inspection-based software rejuvenation policy, which works as a closed-loop control technique, is proposed. This policy mitigates the negative impact of two-level software aging. The two levels considered are the user-level applications and the operating system. A Markov regenerative process model is constructed based on the system condition. We obtain the degradation rate of the application software and operating system from fault injection experiments. The diagnostic accuracy of the adopted monitor and analysis system, which is applied to inspect the application software and operating system, is considered as we provide the optimal rejuvenation strategies. Finally, the availability and the overall loss probability with their corresponding optimal inspection time intervals are obtained numerically based on the parameter values estimated from the experiments. Experimental results show that two-granularity software rejuvenation is much more effective than traditional single-level software rejuvenation. In our experimental study, when two-granularity software rejuvenation is used, the unavailability and the overall loss probability of the system were reduced by 17.9% and 2.65%, respectively, in comparison with the single-level rejuvenation.