A simple group mutual l-exclusion algorithm

This work deals with the domination numbers of generalized de Bruijn digraphs and generalized Kautz digraphs. Dominating sets for digraphs are not familiar compared with dominating sets for undirected graphs. Whereas dominating sets for digraphs have more applications than those for undirected graphs. We construct dominating sets of generalized de Bruijn digraphs where obtained dominating sets have some qualifications. For generalized Kautz digraphs, there is a minimum dominating set in those constructed dominating sets.     

A priority-based distributed group mutual exclusion algorithm when group access is non-uniform

In the group mutual exclusion problem, each critical section has a type or a group associated with it. Processes requesting critical sections belonging to the same group (that is, of the same type) may execute their critical sections concurrently. However, processes requesting critical sections belonging to different groups (that is, of different types) must execute their critical sections in a mutually exclusive manner.     

A simple token-based algorithm for the mutual exclusion problem in distributed systems

Solving the problem of mutually exclusive access to a critical resource is a major challenge in distributed systems. In some solutions, there is a unique token in the whole system which acts as a privilege to access a critical resource. Practical and easily implemented, the token-ring algorithm is one of the most popular token-based mutual exclusion algorithms known in this field’s literature. However, it suffers from low scalability and a high average waiting time for resource seekers. The present paper proposes a new algorithm which employs a two-dimensional torus logical structure of N processes and the token-ring algorithm concept. It performs in a way that increasingly raises scalability and reduces the average waiting time of the token-ring algorithm. The token makes a circular movement along the columns of the two-dimensional torus (vertical ring), while the requests for the critical resource make a circular movement along the rows of the torus (horizontal ring). In this algorithm, the number of messages exchanged is between \(2\sqrt{{N}}+1\) and 3\(\sqrt{{N}}+1\) under light load situations and, under heavy load situations, is at the most three messages per critical section invocation. Thus, in contrast with the leading algorithms, the proposed algorithm has gained significant improvements, in addition to having been proved to operate correctly.     

A queue based mutual exclusion algorithm

A new elegant and simple algorithm for mutual exclusion of N processes is proposed. It only requires shared variables in a memory model where shared variables need not be accessed atomically. We prove mutual exclusion by reformulating the algorithm as a transition system (automaton), and applying simulation of automata. The proof has been verified with the higher-order interactive theorem prover PVS. Under an additional atomicity assumption, the algorithm is starvation free, and we conjecture that no competing process is passed by any other process more than once. This conjecture was verified by model checking for systems with at most five processes.     

A fair distributed mutual exclusion algorithm

This paper presents a fair decentralized mutual exclusion algorithm for distributed systems in which processes communicate by asynchronous message passing. The algorithm requires between N-1 and 2(N-1) messages per critical section access, where N is the number of processes in the system. The exact message complexity can be expressed as a deterministic function of concurrency in the computation. The algorithm does not introduce any other overheads over Lamport's and Ricart-Agrawala's algorithms, which require 3(N-1) and 2(N-1) messages, respectively, per critical section access and are the only other decentralized algorithms that allow mutual exclusion access in the order of the timestamps of requests     

Asynchronous group mutual exclusion

Abstract. Mutual exclusion and concurrency are two fundamental and essentially opposite features in distributed systems. However, in some applications such as Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) we have found it necessary to impose mutual exclusion on different groups of processes in accessing a resource, while allowing processes of the same group to share the resource. To our knowledge, no such design issue has been previously raised in the literature. In this paper we address this issue by presenting a new problem, called Congenial Talking Philosophers, to model group mutual exclusion. We also propose several criteria to evaluate solutions of the problem and to measure their performance. Finally, we provide an efficient and highly concurrent distributed algorithm for the problem in a shared-memory model where processes communicate by reading from and writing to shared variables. The distributed algorithm meets the proposed criteria, and has performance similar to some naive but centralized solutions to the problem. Received: November 1998 / Accepted: April 2000     

A fast,scalable mutual exclusion algorithm

Summary This paper is concerned with synchornization under read/write atomicity in shared memory multi-processors. We present a new algorithm forN-process mutual exclusion that requires only read and write operations and that hasO(logN) time complexity, where time is measured by counting remote memory references. The time complexity of this algorithm is better than that of all prior solutions to the mutual exclusion problem that are based upon atomic read and write instructions; in fact, the time complexity of most prior solutions is unbounded. Performance studies are presented that show that our mutual exclusion algorithm exhibits scalable performance under heavy contention. In fact, its performance rivals that of the fastest queue-based spin locks based on strong primitives such as compare-and-swap and fetch-and-add. We also present a modified version of our algorithm that generates onlyO(1) memory references in the absence of contention. Jae-Heon Yang received the B.S. and M. S. degrees in Computer Engineering from Seoul National University in 1985 and 1987, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from the University of Maryland at College Park in 1994. Since June 1994, he has been an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at Mills College in Oakland, California. From 1987 to 1989, he was a junior researcher at the Korea Telecommunication Authority Research Center. His research interests include distributed computing and operating systems. James H. Anderson received the M. S. degree in Computer Science from Michigan State University in 1982, the M.S. degree in Computer Science from Purdue University in 1983, and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Sciences from the University of Texas at Austin in 1990. Since August 1993, he has been an Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining the University of North Carolina, he was an Assistant Professor of Computer Science for three years at the University of Maryland at College Park Professor Anderson's main research interests are within the area of coneurrent and distributed computing. His current interests include wait-free algorithms, scalabde synchronization mechanisms for shared-memory systems, and object-sharing strategies for hard real-time applications.Preliminary version was presented at the Twelfth Annual ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing Ithaca, New York, August 1993 [15]. Work supported, in part, by NSF Contracts CCR-9109497 and CCR-9216421 and by the Center for Excellence in Space Data and Information Sciences (CESDIS)     

Space-efficient FCFS group mutual exclusion

In the group mutual exclusion problem [Y. Joung, Asynchronous group mutual exclusion, Distrib. Comput. 13 (2000) 189], which generalizes mutual exclusion [E. Dijkstra, Solution of a problem in concurrent programming control, Comm. ACM 8 (9) (1965) 569], a process chooses a session when it requests entry into the Critical Section. A group mutual exclusion algorithm must ensure that the mutual exclusion property holds: if two processes are in the Critical Section at the same time, then they request the same session. In addition to mutual exclusion, lockout freedom, bounded exit, and concurrent entering are basic properties that are desirable in any group mutual exclusion algorithm.Hadzilacos in [Proc. 20th Annual Symp. on Principles of Distributed Computing, 2001, pp. 100-106] first introduced a fairness condition, called first-come-first-served (FCFS), for group mutual exclusion. The only known FCFS group mutual exclusion algorithm is due to Hadzilacos [Proc. 20th Annual Symp. on Principles of Distributed Computing, 2001, pp. 100-106], and requires Θ(N²) bounded shared registers, where N is the number of processes. We present a FCFS group mutual exclusion algorithm that uses only Θ(N) bounded shared registers. (The existence of such an algorithm was posed as an open problem by Hadzilacos.)     

A mutual exclusion algorithm with optimally bounded bypasses

Peterson's algorithm [G.L. Peterson, Myths about the mutual exclusion problem, Inform. Process. Lett. 12 (3) (1981) 115-116] for mutual exclusion has been widely studied for its elegance and simplicity. In Peterson's algorithm, each process has to cross n−1 stages to access the shared resource irrespective of the contention for the shared resource at that time, and allows unbounded bypasses. In [K. Block, T.-K. Woo, A more efficient generalization of Peterson's mutual exclusion algorithm, Inform. Process. Lett. 35 (1990) 219-222], Block and Woo proposed a modified algorithm that transforms the number stages to be crossed from fixed n−1 to t, where 1?t?n, and bounds the number of possible bypasses by n(n−1)/2. This paper proposes a simple modification that reduces the bound on the number of possible bypasses to optimal n−1.     

A resilient mutual exclusion algorithm for computer networks

The authors present an extension to the work of I. Suzuki and T. Kasami (see Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. Distributed Compact Syst., p.365-70 (1982)), where a mutual exclusion algorithm uses a message called a token to transfer the privilege of entering a critical region among the participating sites. The proposed algorithm checks whether the token is lost during network failure, and regenerates it if necessary. The mutual exclusion requirement is satisfied by guaranteeing regeneration of only one token in the network. Failures in a computer network are classified into three types: processor failure, communication controller failure, and communication link failure. To detect failures, a time-out mechanism based on message delay is used. The execution of the algorithm is described for each type of failure; each site follows a rather simple execution procedure. Each site is not required to observe the failure of other sites or communication links     

A delay-optimal quorum-based mutual exclusion algorithm fordistributed systems

The performance of a mutual exclusion algorithm is measured by the number of messages exchanged per critical section execution and the delay between successive executions of the critical section. There is a message complexity and synchronization delay trade-off in mutual exclusion algorithms. The Lamport algorithm (1978) and the Ricart-Agrawal algorithm (1981) both have a synchronization delay of T (T is the average message delay), but their message complexity is O(N). Maekawa's algorithm reduces the message complexity to O(√N); however, it increases the synchronization delay to 2T. After Maekawa's algorithm (1985), many quorum-based mutual exclusion algorithms have been proposed to reduce the message complexity or the increase the resiliency to site and communication link failures. Since these algorithms are Maekawa-type algorithms, they also suffer from the long synchronization delay. We propose a delay-optimal quorum-based mutual exclusion algorithm which reduces the synchronization delay to T and still has a low message complexity of O(K) (K is the size of the quorum which can be as low as log N). A correctness proof and a detailed performance analysis are provided     

A dynamic information-structure mutual exclusion algorithm fordistributed systems

A dynamic information-structure mutual exclusion algorithm is presented for distributed systems whose information-structure evolves with time as sites learn about the state of the system through messages. An interesting feature of the algorithm is that it adapts itself to heterogeneous or fluctuating traffic conditions to optimize the performance (the number of messages exchanged). The performance of the algorithm is studied by simulation technique and compared to the performance of a well-known mutual exclusion algorithm. The impact message loss and site failures on the algorithm is discussed and methods to tolerate these failures are proposed     

Quorum-based algorithms for group mutual exclusion

We propose a quorum system, which we referred to as the surficial quorum system, for group mutual exclusion. The surficial quorum system is geometrically evident and is easy to construct. It also has a nice structure based on which a truly distributed algorithm for group mutual exclusion can be obtained and processed loads can be minimized. When used with Maekawa's algorithm, the surficial quorum system allows up to /spl radic/2n/m(m-l) processes to access a resource simultaneously, where n is the total number of processes and m is the total number of groups. We also present two modifications of Maekawa's algorithm so that the number of processes that can access a resource at a time is not limited to the structure of the underlying quorum system, but to the number that the problem definition allows.     

改进的分布式互斥请求集生成算法

在分布式系统中,各节点必须互斥地访问临界区.节点的请求集的长度决定了系统的效率、性能.虽然最优请求集的节点数最少(大约n),但已有的解决方案该类问题算法类似于穷举法,随着节点的增加,该方法变得不可计算.提出了一种快速的请求集生成算法,该算法以循环差集请求集生成算法的理论和贪心算法的基本思想为基础,在每次迭代的过程中,选出一个当前条件下最优的节点加入请求集.与其他的方法相比较,该方法能对任意给定的整数快速、有效地生成对称的请求集.本算法时间复杂度为O(n2),生成的请求集长度为n～2n.     

A fault tolerant mutual exclusion algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks

In this paper, we propose a permission-based message efficient mutual exclusion (MUTEX) algorithm for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). To reduce messages cost, the algorithm uses the “look-ahead” technique, which enforces MUTEX only among the hosts currently competing for the critical section. We propose mechanisms to handle dozes and disconnections of mobile hosts. The assumption of FIFO channel in the original “look-ahead” technique is also relaxed. The proposed algorithm can also tolerate link or host failures, using timeout-based mechanisms. Both analytical and simulation results show that the proposed algorithm works well under various conditions, especially when the mobility is high or load level is low. To our knowledge, this is the first permission-based MUTEX algorithm for MANETs.     

Dekker's mutual exclusion algorithm made RW‐safe

Dekker's algorithm was thought to be safe in an environment without atomic reads or writes where bits flicker or scramble during simultaneous operations. A counter‐example is presented showing Dekker's algorithm is unsafe without atomic read. A modification to the original algorithm is presented making it RW‐safe, allowing threaded systems to be built on low cost/power hardware without atomic read/write. Correctness is verified by means of invariants and UNITY logic. A performance comparison is made for several two‐thread software mutual‐exclusion algorithms to see if the RW‐safe Dekker is competitive. A subset of the two‐thread solutions are then compared in two N‐thread tournament algorithms. The performance results show that the additional checks in the RW‐safe Dekker do not disadvantage the algorithm in comparison with other two‐thread algorithms. The RW‐safe N‐thread tournament algorithms are competitive with the hardware‐assisted Mellor‐Crummey and Scott algorithm. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A token based distributed algorithm for supporting mutual exclusion in opportunistic networks

Opportunistic networks are essentially distributed networks with transient connectivity among nodes. Nodes in opportunistic networks are resource constrained, mobile and opportunistically come in contact with each other. In such a distributed network, nodes may require exclusive access to a shared object or resource. Ensuring freedom from starvation is a challenging problem in opportunistic networks due to limited pairwise connectivity and node failures. In this paper, we review mutual exclusion algorithms proposed for generic mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) and discuss their applicability to opportunistic networks. Further, we propose a novel token based algorithm¹ and prove its correctness. Simulation results show that our algorithm is communication efficient as compared to other algorithms proposed for generic mobile ad hoc networks. We also propose a timeout based fault detection algorithm that exploits the intercontact time distributions.     

Optimal algorithm for mutual exclusion in mesh-connected computer networks

A distributed algorithm is presented that realizes mutual exclusion among n nodes in a mesh-connected computer network. The nodes communicate by using messages only, and there is no global controller. The algorithm requires at most 3.5 √n messages per mutual exclusion invocation under light demand, and reduces to approximately four messages under heavy demand. The time required to achieve mutual exclusion is shown to be minimal under some general assumptions.     

Superstabilizing mutual exclusion

Summary. A superstabilizing protocol is a protocol that i is self-stabilizing, meaning that it can recover from an arbitrarily severe transient fault; and ii can recover from a local transient fault while satisfying a passage predicate during recovery. This paper investigates the possibility of superstabilizing protocols for mutual exclusion in a ring of processors, where a local fault consists of any transient fault at a single processor; the passage predicate specifies that there be at most one token in the ring, with the single exception of a spurious token colocated with the transient fault. The first result of the paper is an impossibility theorem for a class of superstabilizing mutual exclusion protocols. Two unidirectional protocols are then presented to show that conditions for impossibility can independently be relaxed so that superstabilization is possible using either additional time or communication registers. A bidirectional protocol subsequently demonstrates that superstabilization in O(1) time is possible. All three superstabilizing protocols are optimal with respect to the number of communication registers used. Received: August 1996 / Accepted: March 1999