Self-Stabilization in Wait-Free Shared Memory Objects
Journal article, 2002

This paper proposes a general definition of self-stabilizing wait-free shared memory objects. The definition ensures that, even in the face of processor failures, every execution after a transient memory failure is linearizable except for an a priori bounded number of actions. Shared registers have been used extensively as communication medium in self-stabilizing protocols. As an application of our theory, we therefore focus on self-stabilizing implementation of such registers, thus providing a large body of previous research with a more solid foundation. In particular, we prove that one cannot construct a self-stabilizing single-reader single-writer regular bit from self-stabilizing single-reader single-writer safe bits, using only a single bit for the writer. This leads us to postulate a self-stabilizing dual-reader single-writer safe bit as the minimal hardware needed to achieve self-stabilizing wait-free interprocess communication and synchronization. Based on this hardware, adaptations of well-known wait-free implementations of regular and atomic shared registers are proven to be self-stabilizing.

self-stabilization

shared memory

fault tolerance

wait-free constructions

distributed computing

Author

Jaap-Henk Hoepman

Marina Papatriantafilou

Chalmers, Department of Computing Science, Distributed Computing and Systems

Philippas Tsigas

Chalmers, Department of Computing Science, Distributed Computing and Systems

Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing

0743-7315 (ISSN) 1096-0848 (eISSN)

Vol. 62 5 818-842

Subject Categories

Computer and Information Science

DOI

10.1006/jpdc.2001.1829

More information

Created

10/6/2017