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Implementing Shared Registers in Asynchronous Message-Passing Systems

1995; Attiya, Bar-Noy, Dolev

  • Reference work entry
Encyclopedia of Algorithms

Keywords and Synonyms

Simulation ; Emulation          

Problem Definition

A distributed system is composed of a collection of n processes which communicate with one another. Two means of interprocess communication have been heavily studied. Message-passing systems model computer networks where each process can send information over message channels to other processes. In shared-memory systems, processes communicate less directly by accessing information in shared data structures. Distributed algorithms are often easier to design for shared-memory systems because of their similarity to single-process system architectures. However, many real distributed systems are constructed as message-passing systems. Thus, a key problem in distributed computing is the implementation of shared memory in message-passing systems. Such implementations are also called simulations or emulations of shared memory.

The most fundamental type of shared data structure to implement is a (read-write) register, which stores...

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Recommended Reading

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department Computer Science and Engineering, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Eric Ruppert

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  1. Eric Ruppert
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer ScienceMcCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208, USA

    Ming-Yang Kao Professor of Computer Science

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© 2008 Springer-Verlag

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Ruppert, E. (2008). Implementing Shared Registers in Asynchronous Message-Passing Systems. In: Kao, MY. (eds) Encyclopedia of Algorithms. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30162-4_183

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