Design, Implementation and Performance of a Mutex-Token based Fault-Tolerant Tuple Space Machine

LiPS is a system for distributed computing using idle-cycles in networks of workstations. In its version 2.3, it is currently used at the Universitat des Saarlandes in Saarbrucken, Germany to perform computationally intensive applications in the field of cryptography and computer algebra on a net of approximately 250 workstations. It should be enhanced to work on more than 1000 machines all over the world within the next years. The LiPS system provides its user with the tuple space based generative communication paradigm of parallel computing as known from the coordination language Linda. The core of the LiPS system is the Fault-Tolerant Tuple Space Machine replicating the tuple space. The implementation, based on the protocols given in [ADM 93], is set up on a mutex token based membership protocol for handling crashing and joining tuple space servers, and a closely related total order protocol which establishes a linear order among all tuples. The linear order on tuples i..