Summary: Loose Synchronization for Large­Scale Networked Systems
Jeannie Albrecht, Christopher Tuttle, Alex C. Snoeren, and Amin Vahdat
University of California, San Diego
{jalbrecht, ctuttle, snoeren, vahdat}@cs.ucsd.edu
Abstract
Traditionally, synchronization barriers ensure that no co­
operating process advances beyond a specified point un­
til all processes have reached that point. In heterogeneous
large­scale distributed computing environments, with un­
reliable network links and machines that may become
overloaded and unresponsive, traditional barrier seman­
tics are too strict to be effective for a range of emerg­
ing applications. In this paper, we explore several relax­
ations, and introduce a partial barrier, a synchronization
primitive designed to enhance liveness in loosely coupled
networked systems. Partial barriers are robust to vari­
able network conditions; rather than attempting to hide
the asynchrony inherent to wide­area settings, they en­
able appropriate application­level responses. We evaluate
the improved performance of partial barriers by integrat­

Source: Albrecht, Jeannie - Computer Science Department, Williams College

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences