Polynomial-Time Space-Optimal Silent Self-Stabilizing Minimum-Degree Spanning Tree Construction

Motivated by applications to sensor networks, as well as to many other areas, this paper studies the construction of minimum-degree spanning trees. We consider the classical node-register state model, with a weakly fair scheduler, and we present a space-optimal \emph{silent} self-stabilizing construction of minimum-degree spanning trees in this model. Computing a spanning tree with minimum degree is NP-hard. Therefore, we actually focus on constructing a spanning tree whose degree is within one from the optimal. Our algorithm uses registers on $O(\log n)$ bits, converges in a polynomial number of rounds, and performs polynomial-time computation at each node. Specifically, the algorithm constructs and stabilizes on a special class of spanning trees, with degree at most $OPT+1$. Indeed, we prove that, unless NP $=$ coNP, there are no proof-labeling schemes involving polynomial-time computation at each node for the whole family of spanning trees with degree at most $OPT+1$. Up to our knowledge, this is the first example of the design of a compact silent self-stabilizing algorithm constructing, and stabilizing on a subset of optimal solutions to a natural problem for which there are no time-efficient proof-labeling schemes. On our way to design our algorithm, we establish a set of independent results that may have interest on their own. In particular, we describe a new space-optimal silent self-stabilizing spanning tree construction, stabilizing on \emph{any} spanning tree, in $O(n)$ rounds, and using just \emph{one} additional bit compared to the size of the labels used to certify trees. We also design a silent loop-free self-stabilizing algorithm for transforming a tree into another tree. Last but not least, we provide a silent self-stabilizing algorithm for computing and certifying the labels of a NCA-labeling scheme

Self-Stabilization in the Distributed Systems of Finite State Machines

The notion of self-stabilization was first proposed by Dijkstra in 1974 in his classic paper. The paper defines a system as self-stabilizing if, starting at any, possibly illegitimate, state the system can automatically adjust itself to eventually converge to a legitimate state in finite amount of time and once in a legitimate state it will remain so unless it incurs a subsequent transient fault. Dijkstra limited his attention to a ring of finite-state machines and provided its solution for self-stabilization. In the years following his introduction, very few papers were published in this area. Once his proposal was recognized as a milestone in work on fault tolerance, the notion propagated among the researchers rapidly and many researchers in the distributed systems diverted their attention to it. The investigation and use of self-stabilization as an approach to fault-tolerant behavior under a model of transient failures for distributed systems is now undergoing a renaissance. A good number of works pertaining to self-stabilization in the distributed systems were proposed in the yesteryears most of which are very recent. This report surveys all previous works available in the literature of self-stabilizing systems

Self-stabilizing routing protocols

In systems made up of processors and links connecting the processors, the global state of the system is defined by the local variables of the individual processors. The set of global states can be defined as being either legal or illegal. A self-stabilizing system is one that forces a system from an illegal state to a global legal state without external interference, using a finite number of steps. This thesis will concentrate on application of self-stabilization to routing problems, in particular path identification, connectivity and methods involved in destinational routing. Traditional methods for creation of rooted paths to multiple destinations in a computer network involve the creation of spanning trees, and broadcasting information on the tree to be picked up by the individual nodes on the tree. The information for the creation of the tree are all sourced at the root, and the individual nodes update information from the centralized source. The self-stabilization model for networks allows the decision for a creation of a tree and message checking to occur automatically, locally, and more important, in contrast to traditional networks, asynchronously. The creation, message passing occur with a node and its immediate neighbor, and the tree, path is created based on this communicated data. In addition, the self-stabilization model eliminates the requisite initialization of traditional networks, i.e. given any arbitrary initial state the system (a given network) is guaranteed to stabilize to a legal global state, in the case of a broadcast network, a minimal spanning tree rooted at a source

Communication Efficient Self-Stabilizing Leader Election

This paper presents a randomized self-stabilizing algorithm that elects a leader r in a general n-node undirected graph and constructs a spanning tree T rooted at r. The algorithm works under the synchronous message passing network model, assuming that the nodes know a linear upper bound on n and that each edge has a unique ID known to both its endpoints (or, alternatively, assuming the KT? model). The highlight of this algorithm is its superior communication efficiency: It is guaranteed to send a total of O? (n) messages, each of constant size, till stabilization, while stabilizing in O? (n) rounds, in expectation and with high probability. After stabilization, the algorithm sends at most one constant size message per round while communicating only over the (n - 1) edges of T. In all these aspects, the communication overhead of the new algorithm is far smaller than that of the existing (mostly deterministic) self-stabilizing leader election algorithms. The algorithm is relatively simple and relies mostly on known modules that are common in the fault free leader election literature; these modules are enhanced in various subtle ways in order to assemble them into a communication efficient self-stabilizing algorithm

Self-stabilizing interval routing algorithm with low stretch factor

A compact routing scheme is a routing strategy which suggests routing tables that are space efficient compared to traditional all-pairs shortest path routing algorithms. An Interval Routing algorithm is a compact routing algorithm which uses a routing table at every node in which a set of destination addresses that use the same output port are grouped into intervals of consecutive addresses. Self-stabilization is a property by which a system is guaranteed to reach a legitimate state in a finite number of steps starting from any arbitrary state. A self-stabilizing Pivot Interval Routing (PIR) algorithm is proposed in this work. The PIR strategy allows routing along paths whose stretch factor is at most five, and whose average stretch factor is at most three with routing tables of size O(n3/2log 23/2n) bits in total, where n is the number of nodes in the network. Stretch factor is the maximum ratio taken over all source-destination pairs between the length of the paths computed by the routing algorithm and the distance between the source and the destination. PIR is also an Interval Routing Scheme (IRS) using at most 2n( 1+lnn)1/2 intervals per link for the weighted graphs and 3n(1+ lnn)1/2 intervals per link for the unweighted graphs. The preprocessing stage of the PIR algorithm consists of nodelabeling and arc-labeling functions. The nodelabeling function re-labels the nodes with unique integers so as to facilitate fewer number of intervals per arc. The arc-labeling is done in such a fashion that the message delivery protocol takes an optimal path if both the source and the destination are located within a particular range from each other and takes a near-optimal path if they are farther from each other