Abstract
In the totally anonymous shared memory model of asynchronous distributed computing, processes have no id's and run identical programs. Moreover, processes have identical interface to the shared memory, and in particular, there are no single-writer registers. This paper assumes that processes do not fail, and the shared memory consists only of read/write registers, which are initialized to some default value. A complete characterization of the functions and relations that can be computed within this model is presented. The consensus problem is an important relation which can be computed. Unlike functions, which can be computed with two registers, the consensus protocol uses a linear number of shared registers and rounds.
The paper proves logarithmic lower bounds on the number of registers and rounds needed for solving consensus in this model, indicating the difficulty of computing relations in this model.
Research supported by the Bernard Elkin Chair for Computer Science. Part of the work was done while this author was at the University of Arizona, supported by US-Israel BSF grant 95-00238.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
K. Abrahamson. On achieving consensus using a shared memory. In Proceedings of the 7th Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, pages 291–302. ACM, 1988.
Y. Afek, H. Attiya, D. Dolev, E. Gafni, M. Merritt, and N. Shavit. Atomic snapshots of shared memory. J. ACM, 40(4):873–890, Sept. 1993.
D. Angluin. Local and global properties in networks of processors. In Proceedings of the 12th ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing, pages 82–93,g 1980.
H. Attiya, M. Snir, and M. Warmuth. Computing on an anonymous ring. J. ACM, 35(4):845–876, Oct. 1988.
H. Brit and S. Moran. Wait-freedom vs. bounded wait-freedom in public data structures. Universal Journal of Computer Science, pages 2–19, Jan. 1996.
J. E. Burns and N. A. Lynch. Bounds on shared memory for mutual exclusion. Information and Computation, 107(2):171–184, Dec. 1993.
D. Dolev, C. Dwork, and L. Stockmeyer. On the minimal synchronism needed for distributed consensus. J. ACM, 34(1):77–97, Jan. 1987.
M. J. Fischer, N. A. Lynch, and M. S. Paterson. Impossibility of distributed consensus with one faulty processor. J. ACM, 32(2):374–382, Apr. 1985.
M. J. Fischer, S. Moran, S. Rudich, and G. Taubenfeld. The wakeup problem. SIAM J. Comput., 25(6):1332–1357, Dec. 1996.
M. P. Herlihy. Wait-free synchronization. ACM Trans. Prog. Lang. Syst., 13(1):124–149, Jan. 1991.
P. Jayanti and S. Toueg. Wakeup under read/write atomicity. In J. van Leeuwen and N. Santoro, editors, Proceedings of the 4th International Workshop on Distributed Algorithms, volume 486 of Lecture Notes in Computer Science, pages 277–288. Springer-Verlag, 1990.
M. C. Loui and H. H. Abu-Amara. Memory requirements for agreement among unreliable asynchronous processes. In Advances in Computing Research, Vol. 4, pages 163–183. JAI Press. Inc., 1987.
S. Moran and G. Taubenfeld. A lower bound on wait-free counting. Journal of Algorithms, 24:1–19, 1997.
S. Moran and Y. Wolfsthal. An extended impossibility result for asynchronous complete networks. Inf. Process. Lett., 26:141–151, 1987.
M. Pease, R. Shostak, and L. Lamport. Reaching agreement in the presence of faults. J. ACM, 27(2):228–234, Apr. 1980.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1998 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Attiya, H., Gorbach, A., Moran, S. (1998). Computing in totally anonymous asynchronous shared memory systems. In: Kutten, S. (eds) Distributed Computing. DISC 1998. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1499. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0056473
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0056473
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-65066-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49693-9
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive