Abstract
When considering distributed systems, it is a central issue how to deal with interactions between components. In this paper, we investigate the paradigms of synchronous and asynchronous interaction in the context of distributed systems. We investigate to what extent or under which conditions synchronous interaction is a valid concept for specification and implementation of such systems. We choose Petri nets as our system model and consider different notions of distribution by associating locations to elements of nets. First, we investigate the concept of simultaneity which is inherent in the semantics of Petri nets when transitions have multiple input places. We assume that tokens may only be taken instantaneously by transitions on the same location. We exhibit a hierarchy of ‘asynchronous’ Petri net classes by different assumptions on possible distributions. Alternatively, we assume that the synchronisations specified in a Petri net are crucial system properties. Hence transitions and their preplaces may no longer placed on separate locations. We then answer the question which systems may be implemented in a distributed way without restricting concurrency, assuming that locations are inherently sequential. It turns out that in both settings we find semi-structural properties of Petri nets describing exactly the problematic situations for interactions in distributed systems.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
References
van der Aalst, W.M.P., Kindler, E., Desel, J.: Beyond asymmetric choice: A note on some extensions. Petri Net Newsletter 55, 3–13 (1998)
Best, E.: Structure theory of Petri nets: The free choice hiatus. In: Brauer, W., Reisig, W., Rozenberg, G. (eds.) APN 1986. LNCS, vol. 254, pp. 168–206. Springer, Heidelberg (1987)
Best, E., Shields, M.W.: Some equivalence results for free choice nets and simple nets and on the periodicity of live free choice nets. In: Ausiello, G., Protasi, M. (eds.) CAAP 1983. LNCS, vol. 159, pp. 141–154. Springer, Heidelberg (1983)
de Boer, F.S., Palamidessi, C.: Embedding as a tool for language comparison: On the CSP hierarchy. In: Baeten, J.C.M., Groote, J.F. (eds.) CONCUR 1991. LNCS, vol. 527, pp. 127–141. Springer, Heidelberg (1991)
Bougé, L.: On the existence of symmetric algorithms to find leaders in networks of communicating sequential processes. Acta Informatica 25(2), 179–201 (1988)
van Glabbeek, R.J., Goltz, U., Schicke, J.-W.: Symmetric and asymmetric asynchronous interaction. Technical Report 2008-03, TU Braunschweig. Extended abstract in Proceedings 1st Interaction and Concurrency Experience (ICE 2008) on Synchronous and Asynchronous Interactions in Concurrent Distributed Systems, to appear in Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science. Elsevier, Amsterdam (2008)
van Glabbeek, R.J., Goltz, U., Schicke, J.-W.: On synchronous and asynchronous interaction in distributed systems. Technical Report 2008-04, TU Braunschweig (2008)
Gorla, D.: On the Relative Expressive Power of Asynchronous Communication Primitives. In: Aceto, L., Ingólfsdóttir, A. (eds.) FOSSACS 2006. LNCS, vol. 3921, pp. 47–62. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Hopkins, R.P.: Distributable nets. In: Rozenberg, G. (ed.) APN 1991. LNCS, vol. 524, pp. 161–187. Springer, Heidelberg (1991)
Lamport, L.: Time, clocks, and the ordering of events in a distributed system. Communications of the ACM 21(7), 558–565 (1978)
Lamport, L.: Arbitration-free synchronization. Distributed Computing 16(2-3), 219–237 (2003)
Lynch, N.: Distributed Algorithms. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco (1996)
Nestmann, U.: What is a ‘good’ encoding of guarded choice? Information and Computation 156, 287–319 (2000)
Olderog, E.-R., Hoare, C.A.R.: Specification-oriented semantics for communicating processes. Acta Informatica 23, 9–66 (1986)
Palamidessi, C.: Comparing the expressive power of the synchronous and the asynchronous pi-calculus. In: Conference Record of the 24th ACM SIGPLAN-SIGACT Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (POPL 1997), pp. 256–265. ACM Press, New York (1997)
Reisig, W.: Deterministic buffer synchronization of sequential processes. Acta Informatica 18, 115–134 (1982)
Selinger, P.: First-order axioms for asynchrony. In: Mazurkiewicz, A., Winkowski, J. (eds.) CONCUR 1997. LNCS, vol. 1243, pp. 376–390. Springer, Heidelberg (1997)
Taubner, D.: Zur verteilten Implementierung von Petrinetzen. Informationstechnik 30(5), 357–370 (1988); Technical report, TUM-I 8805, TU München
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2008 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
van Glabbeek, R., Goltz, U., Schicke, JW. (2008). On Synchronous and Asynchronous Interaction in Distributed Systems. In: Ochmański, E., Tyszkiewicz, J. (eds) Mathematical Foundations of Computer Science 2008. MFCS 2008. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 5162. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85238-4_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-85238-4_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-85237-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-85238-4
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)