In the present invention, a coordinated hierarchy of timing mechanisms
preferably cooperate to report errors at different operational levels of a
complex of computing devices. Preferably, each timer is able to identify a
failure condition at its own level of operation and transmit a time-out
condition to a higher level device which may also be a timer. Upon
generation of a time-out condition, a system component experiencing a
fault condition preferably continues to operate in a degraded mode,
informs devices attempting to communicate with the faulty component of a
status of the fault condition, and preferably proceeds to identify and
correct a failure which caused the time out condition. The timers may be
implemented in hardware or software.
