Performability evaluation of CSMA/CD and CSMA/DCR protocols under transient fault conditions

The authors present the results of an evaluation for the CSMA/CD (carrier sense multiple access with collision detection) protocol and a deterministic protocol under workloads anticipated in an industrial environment. Stochastic activity networks are used as the model type, and simulation is used as the solution method. The results show that the preferred resolution scheme depends on the level of workload anticipated and whether transient faults occur. It is seen that stochastic activity networks permit the representation of a relatively complex fault model as well as normal protocol operations. It is shown that, when transient faults are considered, the deterministic collision resolution scheme performs better than the nondeterministic scheme.