An efficient checkpointing algorithm for distributed systems implementing reliable communication channels

This paper presents a new checkpointing algorithm that guarantees the semantics of reliable communication channels despite the crash and recovery of processes. This algorithm requires O(n+m) communication messages, where n is the number of participating processes, and m is the number of "late" messages. The algorithm is nonblocking, requires minimal message logging, and has minimal stable storage requirements. This algorithm is also scalable, simple transparent to the user, and facilitates fast recovery. By introducing suitable delay in the checkpointing process, the parameter m can be made small. We also describe a variant of the algorithm that requires only O(n) messages, at a cost of O(n) additional storage for each process.