418 research outputs found
Two-Bit Messages are Sufficient to Implement Atomic Read/Write Registers in Crash-prone Systems
Atomic registers are certainly the most basic objects of computing science.
Their implementation on top of an n-process asynchronous message-passing system
has received a lot of attention. It has been shown that t \textless{} n/2
(where t is the maximal number of processes that may crash) is a necessary and
sufficient requirement to build an atomic register on top of a crash-prone
asynchronous message-passing system. Considering such a context, this paper
presents an algorithm which implements a single-writer multi-reader atomic
register with four message types only, and where no message needs to carry
control information in addition to its type. Hence, two bits are sufficient to
capture all the control information carried by all the implementation messages.
Moreover, the messages of two types need to carry a data value while the
messages of the two other types carry no value at all. As far as we know, this
algorithm is the first with such an optimality property on the size of control
information carried by messages. It is also particularly efficient from a time
complexity point of view
Randomized Two-Process Wait-Free Test-and-Set
We present the first explicit, and currently simplest, randomized algorithm
for 2-process wait-free test-and-set. It is implemented with two 4-valued
single writer single reader atomic variables. A test-and-set takes at most 11
expected elementary steps, while a reset takes exactly 1 elementary step. Based
on a finite-state analysis, the proofs of correctness and expected length are
compressed into one table.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures, LaTeX source; Submitte
Bounded Concurrent Timestamp Systems Using Vector Clocks
Shared registers are basic objects used as communication mediums in
asynchronous concurrent computation. A concurrent timestamp system is a higher
typed communication object, and has been shown to be a powerful tool to solve
many concurrency control problems. It has turned out to be possible to
construct such higher typed objects from primitive lower typed ones. The next
step is to find efficient constructions. We propose a very efficient wait-free
construction of bounded concurrent timestamp systems from 1-writer multireader
registers. This finalizes, corrects, and extends, a preliminary bounded
multiwriter construction proposed by the second author in 1986. That work
partially initiated the current interest in wait-free concurrent objects, and
introduced a notion of discrete vector clocks in distributed algorithms.Comment: LaTeX source, 35 pages; To apper in: J. Assoc. Comp. Mac
Process-Algebraic Models of Multi-Writer Multi-Reader Non-Atomic Registers
We present process-algebraic models of multi-writer multi-reader safe, regular and atomic registers. We establish the relationship between our models and alternative versions presented in the literature. We use our models to formally analyse by model checking to what extent several well-known mutual exclusion algorithms are robust for relaxed atomicity requirements. Our analyses refute correctness claims made about some of these algorithms in the literature
Time-Efficient Read/Write Register in Crash-prone Asynchronous Message-Passing Systems
The atomic register is certainly the most basic object of computing science.
Its implementation on top of an n-process asynchronous message-passing system
has received a lot of attention. It has been shown that t \textless{} n/2
(where t is the maximal number of processes that may crash) is a necessary and
sufficient requirement to build an atomic register on top of a crash-prone
asynchronous message-passing system. Considering such a context, this paper
visits the notion of a fast implementation of an atomic register, and presents
a new time-efficient asynchronous algorithm. Its time-efficiency is measured
according to two different underlying synchrony assumptions. Whatever this
assumption, a write operation always costs a round-trip delay, while a read
operation costs always a round-trip delay in favorable circumstances
(intuitively, when it is not concurrent with a write). When designing this
algorithm, the design spirit was to be as close as possible to the one of the
famous ABD algorithm (proposed by Attiya, Bar-Noy, and Dolev)
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