Limitations of fast consistency conditions for distributed shared memories

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Abstract

A consistency condition for distributed shared memory is fast if it has a fast implementation in which the execution time of every operation is significantly faster than the network delay. These conditions include Pipelined RAM, weak consistency, causal memory, and one interpretation of processor consistency. It is shown that if a condition is fast then it does not support non-centralized solutions for mutual exclusion.

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This research was supported by grant No. 92–0233 from the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF), Jerusalem, Israel, the fund for the promotion of research in the Technion, and by Technion V.P.R. funds.

Most of this research was performed while the author was at the Department of Computer Science, The Technion.

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