Self-Stabilization of Wait-Free Shared Memory Objects

J.H. Hoepman, Marina Papatriantafilou, Philippas Tsigas

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    10 Citations (Scopus)
    2 Downloads (Pure)

    Abstract

    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.
    Original languageUndefined
    Pages (from-to)766-791
    JournalJournal of parallel and distributed computing
    Volume62
    Issue number5
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2002

    Keywords

    • IR-74779
    • wait-free constructions
    • Distributed Computing
    • METIS-211555
    • Shared memory
    • Fault Tolerance
    • self-stabilization

    Cite this