Encyclopedia of Algorithms

2008 Edition
| Editors: Ming-Yang Kao

Randomization in Distributed Computing

1996; Chandra
  • Tushar Deepak Chandra
Reference work entry
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30162-4_321

Keywords and Synonyms

Agreement; Byzantine agreement                

Problem Definition

This problem is concerned with using the multi-writer multi-reader register primitive in the shared memory model to design a fast, wait-free implementation of consensus. Below are detailed descriptions of each of these terms.

Consensus Problems

There are n processors and the goal is to design distributed algorithms to solve the following two consensus problems for these processors.

Problem 1 (Binary consensus)

Input: Processor i has input bit bi.

Output: Each processor i has output bit \( { b^{\prime}_i } \)

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Recommended Reading

  1. 1.
    Aspnes, J.: Randomized protocols for asynchronous consensus. Distrib. Comput. 16(2–3), 165–175 (2003)Google Scholar
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    Aspnes, J., Waarts, O.: Randomized consensus in expected \( { o(n \log^2 n) } \) operations per processor. In: Proceedings of the 33rd Symposium on Foundations of Computer Science. 24–26 October 1992, pp. 137–146. IEEE Computer Society, Pittsburgh (1992)Google Scholar
  3. 3.
    Attiya, H., Censor, K.: Tight bounds for asynchronous randomized consensus. In: Proceedings of the Symposium on the Theory of Computation. San Diego, 11–13 June 2007 ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) (2007)Google Scholar
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    Aumann, Y.: Efficient asynchronous consensus with the weak adversary scheduler. In: Symposium on Principles of Distrib. Comput.(PODC) Santa Barbara, 21–24 August 1997, pp. 209–218. ACM Special Interest Group on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) (1997)Google Scholar
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    Aumann, Y., Kapach-Levy, A.: Cooperative sharing and asynchronous consensus using single-reader/single-writer registers. In: Proceedings of 10th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium of Discrete Algorithms (SODA) Baltimore, 17–19 January 1999, pp. 61–70. Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM) (1999)Google Scholar
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    Dolev, D., Dwork, C., Stockmeyer, L.: On the minimal synchronism needed for distributed consensus. J. ACM (JACM) 34(1), 77–97 (1987)MathSciNetGoogle Scholar
  7. 7.
    Fischer, M.J., Lynch, N.A., Paterson, M.: Impossibility of distributed consensus with one faulty process. In: Proceedings of the 2nd ACM SIGACT-SIGMOD Symposium on Principles of Database System (PODS) Atlante, 21–23 March, pp. 1–7. Association for Computational Machinery (ACM) (1983)Google Scholar
  8. 8.
    Herlihy, M.: Wait-free synchronization. ACM Trans. Programm. Lang. Syst. 13(1), 124–149 (1991)Google Scholar
  9. 9.
    Lynch, N.: Distributed Algorithms. Morgan Kaufmann, San Mateo (1996)Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer-Verlag 2008

Authors and Affiliations

  • Tushar Deepak Chandra
    • 1
  1. 1.IBM Watson Research CenterYorktown HeightsUSA