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A non-blocking lightweight implementation of causal order message delivery

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Theory and Practice in Distributed Systems

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 938))

Abstract

This paper presents an algorithm to implement point-topoint causal order message delivery in distributed systems which does not force the sender to wait and which does not piggyback control information (such as timestamps) on messages. The algorithm is based on a message transmission protocol using low-level acknowledgements between FIFO buffers. We show that on the one hand causal order can easily and efficiently be realized in that way, but that on the other hand the loss of knowledge—induced by not using dependency matrices as in previously known protocols—leads to a slight restriction with respect to the applicability of the new protocol. The advantages of our scheme, however, are obvious because it is non-blocking and the piggybacking of huge control information on messages is avoided. Furthermore, the new algorithm is easily implementable since many distributed systems and low-level transmission protocols already provide message buffers and explicit or implicit message acknowledgements.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Technical University of Darmstadt, Alexanderstr. 10, D 64283, Darmstadt, Germany

    Friedemann Mattern & Stefan Fünfrocken

Authors
  1. Friedemann Mattern
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  2. Stefan Fünfrocken
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Editor information

Kenneth P. Birman Friedemann Mattern André Schiper

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© 1995 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Mattern, F., Fünfrocken, S. (1995). A non-blocking lightweight implementation of causal order message delivery. In: Birman, K.P., Mattern, F., Schiper, A. (eds) Theory and Practice in Distributed Systems. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 938. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60042-6_14

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/3-540-60042-6_14

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-60042-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49409-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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