Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

International Workshop on Distributed Algorithms

WDAG 1995: Distributed Algorithms pp 72–86Cite as

The inherent cost of strong-partial view-synchronous communication

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 972))

Abstract

We examine algorithmic issues associated with view-synchronous communication (VSC) group membership in large-scale distributed systems where network partitions may result in multiple views to be active concurrently. We first derive necessary conditions on the partial order of installed views such that VSC is meaningful and solvable in the presence of partitions. We then prove that strong-partial VSC, which guarantees concurrent views to be disjoint, is not easier than atomic commitment. As such, all know lower bound results for atomic commitment are also lower bounds for this problem, including the impossibility of non-blocking solutions in the presence of communication failures. We discuss the practical implications of our results in constructing group communication facilities for large-scale distributed systems.

This work has been supported in part by the Commission of European Communities under ESPRIT Programme Basic Research Project 6360 (BROADCAST), the Italian National Research Council and the Italian Ministry of University, Research and Technology.

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

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Y. Amir, D. Dolev, S. Kramer and D. Malki. Membership Algorithms in Broadcast Domains. In Proc. 6th Intl. Workshop on Distributed Algorithms, A. Segall and S. Zacks (Eds.), Haifa, Israel, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 647, Springer-Verlag, November 1992, 292–312.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Y. Amir, D. Dolev, S. Kramer and D. Malki. Transis: A Communication Sub-System for High Availability. In Proc. 22nd Annual International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing Systems, July 1992, 76–84.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Ö. Babaoğlu and A. Schiper. On Group Communication in Large-Scale Distributed Systems. In Proc. ACM SIGOPS European Workshop, Dagstuhl, Germany, September 1994. Also appears as ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, 29(1):62–67, January 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Ö. Babaoğlu, A. Bartoli and G. Dini. Replicated File Management in Large-Scale Distributed Systems. In Proc. 8th Int. Workshop on Distributed Algorithms, G. Tel and P. Vitányi (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 857, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, September 1994, 1–16.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Ö. Babaoğlu, R. Davoli and A. Montresor. Efficient Algorithms for Group Membership and View-Synchronous Communication in the Presence of Partitions. Technical Report, Department of Computer Science, University of Bologna, April 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Ö. Babaoğlu, R. Davoli, L.A. Giachini and M.G. Baker. Relacs: A Communication Infrastructure for Constructing Reliable Applications in Large-Scale Distributed Systems. In Proc. 28th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Maui, January 1995, vol. II, 612–621.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Ö. Babaoğlu, R. Davoli, L.A. Giachini and P. Sabattini. The Inherent Cost of Strong-Partial View-Synchronous Communication. Technical Report UBLCS-95-11, Department of Computer Science, University of Bologna, April 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  8. Ö. Babaoğlu and S. Toueg. Non-Blocking Atomic Commitment In Distributed Systems, Sape J. Mullender (Ed.), Addison-Wesley-ACM Press, New York, 1993, 147–168.

    Google Scholar 

  9. K.P. Birman and T.A. Joseph. Exploiting Virtual Synchrony in Distributed Systems. In Proc. 11th ACM Symposium on Operating Systems Principles, 1987, 123–138.

    Google Scholar 

  10. P.A. Bernstein, V. Hadzilacos and N. Goodman. Concurrency Control and Recovery in Database Systems. Addison-Wesley, Reading, Massachusetts, 1987.

    Google Scholar 

  11. K. Birman, The Process Group Approach to Reliable Distributed Computing, Communication of the ACM, 9(12):36–53, December 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  12. T.D. Chandra and S. Toueg. Unreliable Failure Detectors for Asynchronous Systems. In Proc. 10th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, August 1991, 325–340.

    Google Scholar 

  13. D.R. Cheriton and W. Zwaenepoel. Distributed Process Groups in the V Kernel. ACM Trans. Computer Systems. 3(2):77–107, May 1985.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. C. Dwork and D. Skeen. The Inherent Cost of Nonblocking Commitment. In Proc. 2nd ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, Montreal, Canada, August 1983, 1–11.

    Google Scholar 

  15. P.E. Ezhilchelvan, R.A. Macedo and S.K. Shrivastava. Newtop: A Fault-Tolerant Group Communication Protocol. Technical Report, Computer Laboratory, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom, August 1994.

    Google Scholar 

  16. P. Felber, C. Malloth, A. Schiper and U. Wilhelm. Phoenix: A Group-Oriented Infrastructure for Large-Scale Distributed Systems. Technical Report, EPFL-LSE, Lausanne, Switzerland.

    Google Scholar 

  17. M.J. Fischer, N.A. Lynch, and M.S. Paterson. Impossibility of Distributed Consensus with One Faulty Process. Journal of ACM, 32(2):374–382, April 1985.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. R. Friedman and R. van Renesse. Strong and Weak Virtual Synchrony in Horus. Technical Report TR95-1491, Department of Computer Science, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, March 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  19. J.N. Gray. Notes on Database Operating Systems. In Operating Systems: An Advanced Course, R. Bayer, R.M. Graham and G. Seegmuller (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 60, Springer-Verlag, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  20. R. Guerraoui and A. Schiper. Transaction model vs. Virtual Synchrony model: bridging the gap. To appear in Distributed Systems: From Theory to Practice, K. Birman, F. Cristian, F. Mattern, A. Schiper (Eds.), Springer Verlag, LNCS, 1995.

    Google Scholar 

  21. V. Hadzilacos. On the Relationship Between the Atomic Commitment and Consensus Problems. In Fault-Tolerant Distributed Computing, B. Simons and A. Z. Spector (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 448, Springer-Verlag, New York, 1990, 201–208.

    Google Scholar 

  22. F. Jahanian and W.M. Morgan. Strong, Weak and Hbrid Group Membership. In Proc. 2nd IEEE Workshop on the Management of Replicated Data, November 1992, 34–38.

    Google Scholar 

  23. M.F. Kaashoek and A.S. Tanenbaum. Group communication in the Amoeba distributed operating system. In Proc. 11th International Conference on Distributed Computer Systems, IEEE Computer Society Press, Arlington, Texas, May 1991, 222–230.

    Google Scholar 

  24. L. Moser, Y. Amir, P. Melliar-Smith and D. Agarwal. Extended Virtual Synchrony. In Proc. 14th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, IEEE Computer Society Press, Poland, June 1994, 56–65.

    Google Scholar 

  25. L.L. Peterson, N.C. Bucholz, and R.D. Schlichting. Preserving and using context information in interprocess communication. ACM Transactions on Computer Systems, 7(3):217–246, August 1989.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. R. van Renesse, K. Birman, R. Cooper, B. Glade and P. Stephenson. The Horus System. In Reliable Distributed Computing with the Isis Toolkit, K.P. Birman, R. van Renesse (Ed.), IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA, 1993, 133–147.

    Google Scholar 

  27. A. Ricciardi and K. Birman. Using Process Groups to Implement Failure Detection in Asynchronous Environments. In Proc. 10th ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, August 1991, 341–351.

    Google Scholar 

  28. A. Ricciardi, A. Schiper and K. Birman. Understanding Partitions and the “No Partition” Assumption. In Proc. 4th IEEE Workshop on Future Trends of Distributed Systems, Lisboa, September 1993.

    Google Scholar 

  29. A. Schiper and A. Ricciardi. Virtually-Synchronous Communication Based on a Weak Failure Suspector. In Proc. 23rd International Symposium on Fault-Tolerant Computing Systems, Toulouse, France, June 1993, 534–543.

    Google Scholar 

  30. A. Schiper and A. Sandoz. Uniform Reliable Multicast in a Virtually Synchronous Environment. In Proc. 13th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems, May 1993, 501–568.

    Google Scholar 

  31. A. Schiper and A. Sandoz. Primary Partition “Virtually-Synchronous Communication” Harder than Consensus. In Proc. 8th Int. Workshop on Distributed Algorithms, G. Tel and P. Vitányi (Eds.), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 857, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, September 1994, 38–52.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Bologna, 40127, Bologna, Italy

    Özalp Babaoğlu, Renzo Davoli, Luigi Giachini & Paolo Sabattini

Authors
  1. Özalp Babaoğlu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Renzo Davoli
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Luigi Giachini
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Paolo Sabattini
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Jean-Michel Hélary Michel Raynal

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 1995 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Babaoğlu, Ö., Davoli, R., Giachini, L., Sabattini, P. (1995). The inherent cost of strong-partial view-synchronous communication. In: Hélary, JM., Raynal, M. (eds) Distributed Algorithms. WDAG 1995. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 972. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0022139

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0022139

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-60274-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-44783-2

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation