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Encyclopedia of Algorithms pp 2239–2242Cite as

Topology Approach in Distributed Computing

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Years and Authors of Summarized Original Work

  • 1999; Herlihy Shavit

Problem Definition

The application of techniques from Combinatorial and Algebraic Topology has been successful at solving a number of problems in distributed computing. In 1993, three independent teams [3, 15, 17], using different ways of generalizing the classical graph-theoretical model of distributed computing, were able to solve set agreement a long-standing open problem that had eluded the standard approaches. Later on, in 2004, journal articles by Herlihy and Shavit [15] and by Saks and Zaharoglou [17] were to win the prestigious Gödel prize. This paper describes the approach taken by the Herlihy/Shavit paper, which was the first draw the connection between Algebraic and Combinatorial Topology and Distributed Computing.

Pioneering work in this area, such as by Biran, Moran, and Zaks [2] used graph-theoretic notions to model uncertainty, and were able to express certain lower bounds in terms of graph connectivity....

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Recommended Reading

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

    Maurice Herlihy

Authors
  1. Maurice Herlihy
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Correspondence to Maurice Herlihy .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Ming-Yang Kao

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Herlihy, M. (2016). Topology Approach in Distributed Computing. In: Kao, MY. (eds) Encyclopedia of Algorithms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2864-4_424

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