Are Wait-free Algorithms Fast?
Name
MIT-LCS-TM-442.pdf
Size
15.61 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
131d2fb2421adac7524d403c7add99b7
Author(s)
Attiya, Hagit
Lynch, Nancy A.
Shavit, Nir
Date Issued
March 1991
Series/Report no.
MIT-LCS-TM-442
Abstract
The time complexity of wait-free algorithms in "normal" executions, where no failures occure and processes operate at approximately the same speed, is considered. A lower bound of log n on the time complexity of any wait-free algorithm that achieves approximate agreements among n processes is proved. In contrast, there exists a non-wait-free algorithm that solves this problem in constant time. This implies an Ω(log n) time separation between the wait-free and non-wait-free computation models. On the positive side, we present an O(log n) time wait-free approximate agreement algorithm; the complexity of this algorithm is within a small constant of the lower bound.
Persistent DSpace Link
