A Novel Symmetric Algorithm for Process Synchronization in Distributed Systems

Abstract

While symmetric mutual exclusion algorithms are easy to implement, message complexity per critical section (CS) access to such approaches in a distributed system is typically high. There exist works that handle this issue but to a limited extent. In this paper, we propose a new symmetric algorithm for mutual exclusion. The proposed approach is essentially a prioritized version of the well-known Ricart–Agrawala algorithm for mutual exclusion in distributed systems. The solution proposed uses one or more priority levels, such that different participating processes are placed at different priority levels depending on the initial priority of the processes. The proposed algorithm maintains safety, liveness, and fairness properties toward implementation in a distributed system.