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Computing in totally anonymous asynchronous shared memory systems

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Distributed Computing (DISC 1998)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1499))

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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.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, The Technion, Israel

    Hagit Attiya, Alla Gorbach & Shlomo Moran

Authors
  1. Hagit Attiya
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  2. Alla Gorbach
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  3. Shlomo Moran
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Shay Kutten

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© 1998 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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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

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0056473

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-65066-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-49693-9

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