Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Structures in Concurrency Theory pp 249–263Cite as

Keeping Track of the Latest Gossip in Message-Passing Systems

  • Conference paper

Part of the book series: Workshops in Computing ((WORKSHOPS COMP.))

Abstract

Consider a distributed system in which processes exchange information by passing messages. The gossip problem is the following: Whenever a process q receives a message from another process p, q must be able to decide which of p and q has more recent information about r, for every other process r in the system. With this data, q is in a position to update its knowledge about the global state of the system.

We propose a solution where each message between processes carries information about the current state of knowledge of the sender. This information is uniformly bounded if we make reasonable assumptions about the number of undelivered messages present at any time in the system. This means that the overhead of maintaining the latest gossip is a constant, independent of the length of the underlying computation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. R. Cori, Y. Metivier: Approximations of a trace, asynchronous automata and the ordering of events in a distributed system, Proc. ICALP ’88, LNCS 317 (1988) 147–161.

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  2. R. Cori, Y. Metivier, W. Zlelonka: Asynchronous mappings and asynchronous cellular automata, Inform, and Comput., 106 (1993) 159–202.

    Article  MATH  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  3. D. Dolev, N. Shavit: Bounded concurrent time-stamps are constructible, Proc. ACM STOC (1989) 454–466.

    Google Scholar 

  4. A. Israeli, M. Li: Bounded time-stamps, Proc. 28th IEEE FOCS (1987) 371–382.

    Google Scholar 

  5. R. Krishnan, S. Venkatesh: Optimizing the gossip automaton, Report TCS- 94–3, School of Mathematics, SPIC Science Foundation, Madras, India (1994).

    Google Scholar 

  6. L. Lamport: Time, clocks and the ordering of events in a distributed system, Comm. ACM 17 (8) (1978) 558–565.

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  7. L. Lamport, N. Lynch: Distributed Computing: Models and Methods, in: J. van Leeuwen (ed.), Handbook of Theoretical Computer Science: Volume B, North-Holland, Amsterdam (1990) 1157–1200.

    Google Scholar 

  8. M. Mukund, K. Narayan Kumar, M. Sohoni: Keeping track of the latest gossip in message-passing systems, Report TCS-95-3, School of Mathematics, SPIC Science Foundation, Madras, India (1995).

    Google Scholar 

  9. M. Mukund, M. Sohoni: Keeping track of the latest gossip: Bounded time- stamps suffice, Proc. FSTℰTCS ’93, LNCS 761 (1993) 388–399.

    MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mathematics, SPIC Science Foundation, 92 G.N. Chetty Road, T. Nagar, Madras, 600 017, India

    Madhavan Mukund

  2. Computer Science Group, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Homi Bhabha Road, Colaba, Bombay, 400 005, India

    K. Narayan Kumar

  3. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, 400 076, India

    Milind Sohoni

Authors
  1. Madhavan Mukund
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. K. Narayan Kumar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Milind Sohoni
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Informatik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Unter den Linden 6, D-10099, Berlin, Germany

    Jörg Desel Dr. rer. nat.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1995 British Computer Society

About this paper

Cite this paper

Mukund, M., Narayan Kumar, K., Sohoni, M. (1995). Keeping Track of the Latest Gossip in Message-Passing Systems. In: Desel, J. (eds) Structures in Concurrency Theory. Workshops in Computing. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3078-9_17

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3078-9_17

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-19982-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-3078-9

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation