DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM

TOPIC: EVENT ORDERING IN DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM

PRESENTED BY: Dr. AKASH SANGHI
Assistant Professor,
Department of CSE,
Invertis University, Bareilly

BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering
 Time and Ordering

The two critical differences between centralized and distributed systems are:
• absence of shared memory
• absence of a global clock
Topics covered:
• how programming mechanisms change as a result of these differences
• algorithms that operate in the absence of a global clock
• algorithms that create a sense of a shared, global time
• algorithms that capture a consistent state of a system in the
absence of shared memory

BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 1
 Event Ordering

P1 P2 P3

P
Q1 Q2 Q3

Q
How can the events on P be related to the events on Q?
Which events of P “happened before” which events of Q?
Partial answer: events on P and Q are strictly ordered. So:
P1 ­> P2 ­> P3
and
Q1 ­> Q2 ­> Q3

BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 2
 Event Ordering

P1 P2 P3

P
Message
Q1 Q2 Q3

Realization: the only events on P that can causally affect events on Q are those
that involve communication between P and Q.

If P1 is a send event and Q2 is the corresponding receive event then it must be

the case that:
P1 ­> Q2

BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 3
 Event Ordering
P1 P2 P3

P
Message
Q1 Q2 Q3

Q
“Happened Before” relation:
If Ei and Ej are two events of the same process, then
Ei ­> Ej if i < j.
If Ei and Ej are two events of different processes, then
Ei ­> Ej
if Ei is a message send event and Ej is the corresponding message
receive event.
The relation is transitive.
BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 4
 Lamport's Algorithm
Lamport's algorithm is based on two implementation rules that define how
each process's local clock is incremented.
Notation:
• the processes are named P ,
i
• each process has a local clock, C
i
• the clock time for an event a on process P is denoted by C (a).
i i
Rule 1:
If a and b are two successive events in Pi and a ­> b
then Ci (b) = Ci (a) + d where d > 0.
Rule 2:
If a is a message send event on Pi and b is the message receive event on Pj
then:
• the message is assigned the timestamp t = C (a)
m i
• C (b) = max ( C , t +d)
j j m

BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 5
 Example of Lamport’s Algorithm
1 2 3 10
P1

1 4 6
P2
5

P3
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

• BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 6
 Limitation of Lamport's Algorithm
In Lamport's algorithm two events that are causally related will be related
through their clock times. That is:
If a --> b then C(a) < C(b)
However, the clock times alone do not reveal which events are causally
related. That is, if C(a) < C(b) then it is not known if a --> b or not. All
that is known is:
if C(a) < C(b) then b -/-> a
It would be useful to have a stronger property - one that guarantees that
a --> b iff C(a) < C(b)
This property is guaranteed by Vector Clocks.

• BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 7
 Vector Clock Rules
Each process Pi is equipped with a clock Ci which is an integer vector of
length n.
Ci(a) is referred to as the timestamp event a at Pi
Ci[i], the ith entry of Ci corresponds to Pi’s on logical time.
Ci[j], j i is Pi’s best guess of the logical time at Pj
Implementation rules for vector clocks:
[IR1] Clock Ci is incremented between any two successive events in
process Pi
Ci[i] := Ci[i] + d (d > 0)
[IR2] If event a is the sending of the message m by process Pi, then
message m is assigned a vector timestamp tm = Ci(a); on receiving the same
message m by process Pj, Cj is updated as follows:
k, Cj[k] := max(Cj[k], tm [k])
BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 8
 Vector Clocks

(1,0,0) (2,0,0) (3,4,1)

P1

(2,3,1)
P2
(0,1,0) (2,2,0) (2,4,1)

P3
(0,0,1) (0,0,2)

BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 9
 Causal Ordering of Messages
Send(M1)
Space P1

Send(M2)
P2

P3
 

Time
BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 10
 Birman-Schiper-Stephenson Protocol
1. Before broadcasting a message m, a process Pi increments the vector
time VTPi[i] and timestamps m. Note that (VTPi[i] - 1) indicates how many
messages from Pi precede m.
2. A process Pj  Pi, upon receiving message m timestamped VTm from Pi,
delays its delivery until both the following conditions are satisfied.
a. VTPj[i] = VTm[i] - 1

b. VTPj[k]  VTm[k] k  {1,2,….,n} - {i}

where n is the total number of processes.
Delayed messages are queued at each process in a queue that is
sorted by vector time of the messages. Concurrent messages are
ordered by the time of their receipt.
3. When a message is delivered at a process Pj, VTPj is updated according to
the vector clocks rule [IR2]
BCS704 (DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM) Dr. AKASH SANGHI Dept. of Computer Science and Engineering 11