Bahir Dar Institute of Technology

Faculty of Computing Network and Internet Chair

Introduction of Distributed System

 Content
 Clock Synchronization
 Logical Clocks
 Mutual Exclusion
 Election algorithms
 Chapter- Five
What is synchronization
 Synchronize means two items are adjusted to do the same thing.
 For example: when you synchronize two watches, you adjust
them so they show the same exact time.

 When you synchronize something on a computer, it means data

from one computer is transferred to another computer or device,
and vice versa.
 Then both computers or devices have the same exact data for
whatever program you are running.
Clock synchronization in distributed system

 Clock is an electronic device that counts oscillation in a crystal at

a particular frequency
 Clock synchronization involves aligning the clocks of computers
or nodes, enabling efficient data transfer, smooth
communication, and coordinated task execution
 Clock synchronization in distributed systems aims to establish a
reference for time across nodes.
Clock Synchronization cont….

In centralized systems, time can be unambiguously decided by a

system call
Ex. process A at time t1 gets the time, say tA, and process B at time t2,
where t1 < t2, gets the time, say tB,then tA is always less than tB
Is a mechanism to synchronization the time of all computers in
DS.
Achieving agreement on time in distributed systems is difficult.
Example
Physical Clock

 Device that indicates what time it is.

 Physical clocks are used to adjust the time of nodes.
 Each node in the system can share its local time with other nodes
in the system.
 A distributed system can have many physical clocks, and in
general they will not agree.
 Physical Clocks Cont…

 Is it possible to synchronize all clocks in a distributed system?

 No; even if all computers initially start at the same time, they will
get out of synch after some time due to crystals in different
computers running at different frequencies, a phenomenon
called clock skew.
 Time difference between 2 computers is know as drift
 Clock drift over the time is know as Clock skew
Universal Coordinated Time

 all computers are generally synchronized to a standard time

called UTC
 UTC is the primary time standard by which the world regulates
clock and time .
 It is available via radio signal, Telephone line, satellite(GPS)
Clock Synchronization Algorithms

 Consider the following two situations:

one machine has a receiver of UTC time, then how do we
synchronize all other machines to it
no machine has a receiver, each machine keeps track of its own
time, then how to synchronize them
 For such and other situations many algorithms have been
proposed
Cristian’s Algorithm
 It is the simple algorithm for selecting time, It issue remote
procedure call to time server and obtain the time.
 A machine send a request to the time sever in d/2 second
when d is the max differ b/n a clock & UTC.
 The time server send a reply with current UTC where
receives the request.

Figure : Cristian’s Algorithm Working

Berkeley Algorithm
 Aims to synchronize clocks in a distributed system but takes an
average of all participating machines' clocks instead of relying
on just one central server.
 Suppose there are three machines: (a), (b), and (c).
Network Protocol Time(NTP)
Logical Clocks

 Keep track of each other’s events rather than maintaining

accurate(absolute) clock.
 To implementing a protocol on all machines within your
distributed system, so that the machines are able to maintain
consistent ordering of events within some virtual timespan.
 Distributed systems may have no physically synchronous
global clock, so a logical clock allows global ordering on events
from different processes in such systems.
 Lamport’s Logical Clock

Lamport defined a relation called happens before

a  b read as “a happens before b”; means all processes agree that
first event a occurs, then event b occurs
this relation can be observed in two situations
if a and b are events in the same process, and a occurs before b,
then a  b is true
if a is the event of a message being sent by one process, and b is
the event of the message being received by another process, then
a  b is also true
 Lamport’s Logical Clock………

 Happens before is a transitive relation

 if a  b and b  c, then a  c
 If two events, x and y, happen in different processes that do not
exchange messages, then both x  y and y  x are not true;
 These events are said to be concurrent;
 It means that nothing can be said about the order of these
events
 For every event a, we can assign a time value C(a) on which all
processes agree; if a  b, then C(a) < C(b)
Example

a)three processes, each with its own clock; the clocks run at
different rates
b)Lamport's algorithm corrects the clocks
The positioning of Lamport's logical clocks in distributed systems
Mutual Exclusion
 In a distributed system states that only one process is allowed to
execute the critical section (CS) at any given time.
 In distributed systems, since there is no shared memory, these
methods cannot be used.
 To prevent that such concurrent accesses corrupt the resource, or
make it inconsistent, solutions are needed to grant mutual
exclusive access by processes.
 how are critical regions and mutual exclusion implemented in
distributed systems?
 three algorithms: centralized, distributed, and token ring
 A Centralized Algorithm
 A coordinator is appointed and is in charge of granting
permissions
 Three messages are required: request, grant, release.

a)process 1 asks the coordinator for permission to enter a critical

region; permission is granted
b)process 2 then asks permission to enter the same critical region;
the coordinator does not reply (could also send a no message; is
implementation dependent), but queues process 2; process 2 is
blocked
Example
A Distributed Algorithm

 When a process wants to enter a critical region it builds a

message (containing name of the critical region, its process
number, current time) and sends it to everyone including itself.
A Token Ring Algorithm
 Ring positions may be allocated in numerical order of network
addresses or some other means.
 It does not matter what the ordering is.
 All that matters is that each process knows who is next in line
after itself
Election Algorithms
 Many distributed algorithm need one process to act as a
coordinating.
 There are situations where one process must act as a coordinator,
initiator, or perform some special task
 Assume that
 each process has a unique number
 every process knows the process number of every other process,
but not the state of each process (which ones are currently
running and which ones are down)
 election algorithms attempt to locate the process with the highest
process number
 Types of Election Algorithm
 Bully algorithm
The Bully Algorithm
 Each process has a unique numerical ID.
 when a process (say P4) notices that the coordinator is no longer
responding to requests, it initiates an election as follows
 P4 sends an ELECTION message to all processes with higher
numbers (P5, P6, P7)
 if a process gets an ELECTION message from one of its lower-
numbered colleagues, it sends an OK message to the sender and
holds an election
1.if no one responds, P4 wins the election and becomes a
coordinator
2.if one of the higher-ups answers, this new process takes over
Example: Bully algorithm

a)Process 4 holds an election

b)Process 5 and 6 respond, telling 4 to stop
c)Now 5 and 6 each hold an election
 d)Process 6 tells 5 to stop
e) Process 6 wins and tells everyone
 the last one will send a message to all processes telling them that
it is a boss
 if a process that was previously down comes back, it holds an
election
Ring Algorithm
 Another election algorithm is based on the use of a ring.
 Process priority is obtained by organizing processes into a
(logical) ring. Process with the highest priority should be
elected as Coordinator
Thank You!!!