An optimal algorithm for mutual exclusion in computer networks
TL;DR: An algorithm is proposed that creates mutual exclusion in a computer network whose nodes communicate only by messages and do not share memory, and it is shown that the number can be contained in a fixed amount of memory by storing it as the residue of a modulus.
Abstract: An algorithm is proposed that creates mutual exclusion in a computer network whose nodes communicate only by messages and do not share memory. The algorithm sends only 2*(N - 1) messages, where N is the number of nodes in the network per critical section invocation. This number of messages is at a minimum if parallel, distributed, symmetric control is used; hence, the algorithm is optimal in this respect. The time needed to achieve mutual exclusion is also minimal under some general assumptions. As in Lamport's "bakery algorithm," unbounded sequence numbers are used to provide first-come firstserved priority into the critical section. It is shown that the number can be contained in a fixed amount of memory by storing it as the residue of a modulus. The number of messages required to implement the exclusion can be reduced by using sequential node-by-node processing, by using broadcast message techniques, or by sending information through timing channels. The "readers and writers" problem is solved by a simple modification of the algorithm and the modifications necessary to make the algorithm robust are described.
Citations
More filters
Book•
01 Jan 1996
TL;DR: This book familiarizes readers with important problems, algorithms, and impossibility results in the area, and teaches readers how to reason carefully about distributed algorithms-to model them formally, devise precise specifications for their required behavior, prove their correctness, and evaluate their performance with realistic measures.
Abstract: In Distributed Algorithms, Nancy Lynch provides a blueprint for designing, implementing, and analyzing distributed algorithms. She directs her book at a wide audience, including students, programmers, system designers, and researchers.
Distributed Algorithms contains the most significant algorithms and impossibility results in the area, all in a simple automata-theoretic setting. The algorithms are proved correct, and their complexity is analyzed according to precisely defined complexity measures. The problems covered include resource allocation, communication, consensus among distributed processes, data consistency, deadlock detection, leader election, global snapshots, and many others.
The material is organized according to the system model-first by the timing model and then by the interprocess communication mechanism. The material on system models is isolated in separate chapters for easy reference.
The presentation is completely rigorous, yet is intuitive enough for immediate comprehension. This book familiarizes readers with important problems, algorithms, and impossibility results in the area: readers can then recognize the problems when they arise in practice, apply the algorithms to solve them, and use the impossibility results to determine whether problems are unsolvable. The book also provides readers with the basic mathematical tools for designing new algorithms and proving new impossibility results. In addition, it teaches readers how to reason carefully about distributed algorithms-to model them formally, devise precise specifications for their required behavior, prove their correctness, and evaluate their performance with realistic measures.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Modelling I; Synchronous Network Model
3 Leader Election in a Synchronous Ring
4 Algorithms in General Synchronous Networks
5 Distributed Consensus with Link Failures
6 Distributed Consensus with Process Failures
7 More Consensus Problems
8 Modelling II: Asynchronous System Model
9 Modelling III: Asynchronous Shared Memory Model
10 Mutual Exclusion
11 Resource Allocation
12 Consensus
13 Atomic Objects
14 Modelling IV: Asynchronous Network Model
15 Basic Asynchronous Network Algorithms
16 Synchronizers
17 Shared Memory versus Networks
18 Logical Time
19 Global Snapshots and Stable Properties
20 Network Resource Allocation
21 Asynchronous Networks with Process Failures
22 Data Link Protocols
23 Partially Synchronous System Models
24 Mutual Exclusion with Partial Synchrony
25 Consensus with Partial Synchrony
4,340 citations
Book•
30 Jan 2009TL;DR: What constitutes a distributed operating system and how it is distinguished from a computer network are discussed, and several examples of current research projects are examined in some detail.
Abstract: Distributed operating systems have many aspects in common with centralized ones, but they also differ in certain ways This paper is intended as an introduction to distributed operating systems, and especially to current university research about them After a discussion of what constitutes a distributed operating system and how it is distinguished from a computer network, various key design issues are discussed Then several examples of current research projects are examined in some detail, namely, the Cambridge Distributed Computing System, Amoeba, V, and Eden
1,327 citations
TL;DR: The principal conclusion is that contention due to synchronization need not be a problemin large-scale shared-memory multiprocessors, and the existence of scalable algorithms greatly weakens the case for costly special-purpose hardware support for synchronization, and provides protection against so-called “dance hall” architectures.
Abstract: Busy-wait techniques are heavily used for mutual exclusion and barrier synchronization in shared-memory parallel programs. Unfortunately, typical implementations of busy-waiting tend to produce large amounts of memory and interconnect contention, introducing performance bottlenecks that become markedly more pronounced as applications scale. We argue that this problem is not fundamental, and that one can in fact construct busy-wait synchronization algorithms that induce no memory or interconnect contention. The key to these algorithms is for every processor to spin on separate locally-accessible flag variables, and for some other processor to terminate the spin with a single remote write operation at an appropriate time. Flag variables may be locally-accessible as a result of coherent caching, or by virtue of allocation in the local portion of physically distributed shared memory.We present a new scalable algorithm for spin locks that generates 0(1) remote references per lock acquisition, independent of the number of processors attempting to acquire the lock. Our algorithm provides reasonable latency in the absence of contention, requires only a constant amount of space per lock, and requires no hardware support other than a swap-with-memory instruction. We also present a new scalable barrier algorithm that generates 0(1) remote references per processor reaching the barrier, and observe that two previously-known barriers can likewise be cast in a form that spins only on locally-accessible flag variables. None of these barrier algorithms requires hardware support beyond the usual atomicity of memory reads and writes.We compare the performance of our scalable algorithms with other software approaches to busy-wait synchronization on both a Sequent Symmetry and a BBN Butterfly. Our principal conclusion is that contention due to synchronization need not be a problem in large-scale shared-memory multiprocessors. The existence of scalable algorithms greatly weakens the case for costly special-purpose hardware support for synchronization, and provides a case against so-called “dance hall” architectures, in which shared memory locations are equally far from all processors. —From the Authors' Abstract
1,205 citations
Cites background from "An optimal algorithm for mutual exc..."
...Other researchers have considered mutual exclusion in the context of distributed systems [31, 39, 43, 45, 46], but the characteristics of message passing are di erent enough from shared memory operations that solutions do not transfer from one environment to the other....
[...]
Book•
01 Jan 1995
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a scalable algorithm for spin locks that provides reasonable latency in the absence of contention, requires only a constant amount of space per lock, and requires no hardware support other than a swap-with-memory instruction.
Abstract: Busy-wait techniques are heavily used for mutual exclusion and barrier synchronization in shared-memory parallel programs. Unfortunately, typical implementations of busy-waiting tend to produce large amounts of memory and interconnect contention, introducing performance bottlenecks that become markedly more pronounced as applications scale. We argue that this problem is not fundamental, and that one can in fact construct busy-wait synchronization algorithms that induce no memory or interconnect contention. The key to these algorithms is for every processor to spin on separate locally-accessible flag variables, and for some other processor to terminate the spin with a single remote write operation at an appropriate time. Flag variables may be locally-accessible as a result of coherent caching, or by virtue of allocation in the local portion of physically distributed shared memory.We present a new scalable algorithm for spin locks that generates 0(1) remote references per lock acquisition, independent of the number of processors attempting to acquire the lock. Our algorithm provides reasonable latency in the absence of contention, requires only a constant amount of space per lock, and requires no hardware support other than a swap-with-memory instruction. We also present a new scalable barrier algorithm that generates 0(1) remote references per processor reaching the barrier, and observe that two previously-known barriers can likewise be cast in a form that spins only on locally-accessible flag variables. None of these barrier algorithms requires hardware support beyond the usual atomicity of memory reads and writes.We compare the performance of our scalable algorithms with other software approaches to busy-wait synchronization on both a Sequent Symmetry and a BBN Butterfly. Our principal conclusion is that contention due to synchronization need not be a problem in large-scale shared-memory multiprocessors. The existence of scalable algorithms greatly weakens the case for costly special-purpose hardware support for synchronization, and provides a case against so-called “dance hall” architectures, in which shared memory locations are equally far from all processors. —From the Authors' Abstract
1,165 citations
TL;DR: An algorithm is presented that uses only only c√N messages to create mutual exclusion in a computernetwork, where N is the number of nodes and c is a constant between 3 and 5.
Abstract: An algorithm is presented that uses only c√N messages to create mutual exclusion in a computernetwork, where N is the number of nodes and c a constant between 3 and 5. The algorithm issymmetric and allows fully parallel operation.
782 citations
References
More filters
TL;DR: In this paper, the concept of one event happening before another in a distributed system is examined, and a distributed algorithm is given for synchronizing a system of logical clocks which can be used to totally order the events.
Abstract: The concept of one event happening before another in a distributed system is examined, and is shown to define a partial ordering of the events. A distributed algorithm is given for synchronizing a system of logical clocks which can be used to totally order the events. The use of the total ordering is illustrated with a method for solving synchronization problems. The algorithm is then specialized for synchronizing physical clocks, and a bound is derived on how far out of synchrony the clocks can become.
8,381 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the concept of one event happening before another in a distributed system is examined, and a distributed algorithm is given for synchronizing a system of logical clocks which can be used to totally order the events.
Abstract: The concept of one event happening before another in a distributed system is examined, and is shown to define a partial ordering of the events. A distributed algorithm is given for synchronizing a system of logical clocks which can be used to totally order the events. The use of the total ordering is illustrated with a method for solving synchronization problems. The algorithm is then specialized for synchronizing physical clocks, and a bound is derived on how far out of synchrony the clocks can become.
6,804 citations
TL;DR: A multiprogramming system is described in which all activities are divided over a number of sequential processes, in each of which one or more independent abstractions have been implemented.
Abstract: A multiprogramming system is described in which all activities are divided over a number of sequential processes. These sequential processes are placed at various hierarchical levels, in each of which one or more independent abstractions have been implemented. The hierarchical structure proved to be vital for the verification of the logical soundness of the design and the correctness of its implementation.
1,136 citations
"An optimal algorithm for mutual exc..." refers background in this paper
...While many writers have considered implementation of mutual exclusion [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9], the only earlier algorithm for mutual exclusion in a computer network was proposed by Lamport [10,11]....
[...]
TL;DR: A number of mainly independent sequential-cyclic processes with restricted means of communication with each other can be made in such a way that at any moment one and only one of them is engaged in the “critical section” of its cycle.
Abstract: A number of mainly independent sequential-cyclic processes with restricted means of communication with each other can be made in such a way that at any moment one and only one of them is engaged in the “critical section” of its cycle.
799 citations
"An optimal algorithm for mutual exc..." refers background in this paper
...While many writers have considered implementation of mutual exclusion [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9], the only earlier algorithm for mutual exclusion in a computer network was proposed by Lamport [10,11]....
[...]
TL;DR: A “director-secretary” relationship will be introduced to reflect a possible discipline in the use of sequencing primitives and an analysis of the requirements of the correctness proofs will give an insight into the logical issues at hand.
Abstract: One of the primary functions of an operating system is to rebuild a machine that must be regarded as non-deterministic (on account of cycle stealing and interrupts) into a more or less deterministic automaton. Taming the degree of indeterminacy in steps will lead to a layered operating system. A bottom layer will be discussed and so will the adequacy of the interface it presents. An analysis of the requirements of the correctness proofs will give us an insight into the logical issues at hand. A "director-secretary" relationship will be introduced to reflect a possible discipline in the use of sequencing primitives.
797 citations