Method and system for modeling likely invariants in distributed systems

A method for fault detection in a distributed system comprising:

• (a) randomly selecting one measurement from a plurality of flow intensity measurements;
• (b) searching for a relationship between said one measurement and each remaining one of the plurality of flow intensity measurements;
• (c) grouping said one measurement and each one of the plurality of flow intensity measurements other than said one measurement grouped into the cluster;
• (d) determining relationships between each of the flow intensity measurements other than said one measurement grouped into a cluster;
• (e) iteratively repeating steps (a)-(d) for remaining ones of the plurality of flow intensity measurements not grouped into a cluster until each of the remaining ones of the plurality of flow intensity measurements is grouped into a cluster;
• (f) validating relationships determined between ones of the plurality of flow intensity measurements to determine whether the relationships are invariant relationships;
• (g) predicting flow intensities based on the relationships determined to be invariant relationships;
• and
• (h) detecting faults in the distributed system by comparing measured flow intensity measurements to the predicted flow intensities.