Rambo: a robust, reconfigurable atomic memory service for dynamic networks
Name
Lynch_Rambo a.pdf
Size
551.06 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
84912935c03b20a60df895a826caf004
Author(s)
Gilbert, Seth
Lynch, Nancy A.
Shvartsman, Alexander A.
Date Issued
September 2010
Journal
Distributed Computing
Publisher
Springer-Verlag
Citation
Gilbert, Seth, Nancy Lynch, and Alexander Shvartsman. “Rambo: a robust, reconfigurable atomic memory service for dynamic networks.” Distributed Computing 23.4 (2010): 225-272-272.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
n this paper, we present Rambo, an algorithm for emulating a read/write distributed shared memory in a dynamic, rapidly changing environment. Rambo provides a highly reliable, highly available service, even as participants join, leave, and fail. In fact, the entire set of participants may change during an execution, as the initial devices depart and are replaced by a new set of devices. Even so, Rambo ensures that data stored in the distributed shared memory remains available and consistent. There are two basic techniques used by Rambo to tolerate dynamic changes. Over short intervals of time, replication suffices to provide fault-tolerance. While some devices may fail and leave, the data remains available at other replicas. Over longer intervals of time, Rambo copes with changing participants via reconfiguration, which incorporates newly joined devices while excluding devices that have departed or failed. The main novelty of Rambo lies in the combination of an efficient reconfiguration mechanism with a quorum-based replication strategy for read/write shared memory. The Rambo algorithm can tolerate a wide variety of aberrant behavior, including lost and delayed messages, participants with unsynchronized clocks, and, more generally, arbitrary asynchrony. Despite such behavior, Rambo guarantees that its data is stored consistency. We analyze the performance of Rambo during periods when the system is relatively well-behaved: messages are delivered in a timely fashion, reconfiguration is not too frequent, etc. We show that in these circumstances, read and write operations are efficient, completing in at most eight message delays.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00446-010-0117-1
