Summary: Fast, wait­free (2k \Gamma 1)­Renaming
(Extended abstract)
Yehuda Afek \Lambda Michael Merritt y
Abstract
We describe a fast, wait­free (2k \Gamma 1)­renaming algo­
rithm which takes O(k 2 ) time. (Where k is the con­
tention, the number of processes actually taking steps in
a given run.) The algorithm makes extensive use of tools
and techniques developed by Attiya and Fouren [AF98].
Other extensions, including a fast (long­lived) atomic
snapshot algorithm, are briefly discussed.
1 Introduction
Since early work in mutual exclusion [Lam87], re­
searchers have asked whether distributed algorithms can
be made fast; that is, can their worst­case time complex­
ity be bounded by a function of the number of actually
active or contending processes, rather than the total
number of processes that might take steps [ADT95] 1 ?
If a fast solution can be found for a given problem, is
there a trade­off in other measures?

Source: Afek, Yehuda - School of Computer Science, Tel Aviv University

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences