On heuristics for optimal configuration of hierarchical distributed monitoring systems

This paper considers the problem of optimal configuration of the monitoring units in a hierarchical distributed monitoring system. A hierarchical distributed monitoring system consists of a hierarchy of monitoring units which are grouped and distributed onto the physical network. The architecture lends itself to parallel processing, reducing the complexity of distributed monitoring caused by factors such as collection and processing of the large quantities of monitoring data. Furthermore, the topology-specific partitioning of the monitoring units allow complex, topology-specific events to be monitored and evaluated in a natural and efficient way. The optimal configuration problem is concerned with finding an optimal hierarchical partition of the monitoring units such that the total processing cost is the minimum. It is a NP-complete problem. In this paper, we study the heuristics for obtaining near-optimal grouping of monitoring units. Simulation of heuristic algorithms for mesh and hypercube networks are presented. The results suggest further system topology specific heuristics. Although the paper is targeted at distributed monitoring, we believe that the results can also be applied to other hierarchical control problems in distributed computing.