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Clock Synchronization in Distributed Systems

Presentation · March 2022

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.12786.17608

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CLOCK SYNCHRONIZATION IN DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS

Published Article: https://www.irjet.net/archives/V9/i3/IRJET-V9I3350.pdf

Presentation by:

Amey Thakur & Mega Satish

AGENDA

1. What is a Distributed Systems?

2. What is Clock Synchronization?

3. Clock Synchronization Algorithms

4. Conclusion

5. References
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEMS & ITS TYPES

Distributed System (DS) is a collection of computers connected via a high-speed communication network.

Types of Distributed System

1. Homogeneous Distributed Systems:

- It is a distributed system such that all nodes have identical hardware, the same type of
architecture, and operating system.

2. Heterogeneous Distributed Systems:

- It is a distributed system such that each node has its own operating system and
machine architecture.
NEED TO RESYNCHRONIZE THE CLOCK

- Need for proper allocation of available resources to preserve the state of resources and

coordination between processes.

- Clock synchronization is critical for resolving these problem and can be implemented by using the

physical clock and logical clock.

- Synchronizing clocks helps us

➔ Time-stamping events (provides ‘Fairness’)

➔ Ordering events (provides ‘Correctness’)

CLOCK SYNCHRONIZATION

- In a centralized system, time is unambiguous.

➔ One system clock that keeps time, all others nodes follow this time.

- In a decentralized system, each node has its own time.

➔ Problem: an event that occured after another event may not be assigned because of

the lack of synchronization of time among the different nodes.

CLOCK SYNCHRONIZATION

- We need to measure time accurately:

➔ To know the time an event occurred at a computer.

➔ To do this we need to synchronize its clock with an authoritative external clock.

- Algorithms for clock synchronization useful for:

➔ Concurrency control based on timestamp ordering.

➔ Authenticity of requests e.g. in Kerberos.

- There is no global clock in a distributed system.

- Logical time is an alternative:

➔ It gives ordering of events - also useful for consistency of replicated data

TYPES OF CLOCKS IN SYNCHRONIZATION

- Physical clock - refers to the time based on UTC, which is used as a reference time clock.

➔ There are two aspects:

- Obtaining an accurate value for physical time.

- Synchronizing the concept of physical time throughout the distributed system.

- Logical clock - refers to the relative time and maintain logical consistency.

➔ The essence of logical clocks is based on the happened-before relationship.

HAPPENED BEFORE RELATIONSHIP

- If two events, a and b, occurred at the same process, they occurred in the order of which they

were observed, i.e., a > b.

- If a sends a message to b, then a > b. i.e., you cannot receive something before it is sent. This

relationship holds regardless of where events a and b occur.

- The happen-before relationship is transitive.

- If a happens before b and b happens before c, then a happens before c. i.e., if a > b and b > c, then

a > c.
CRISTIAN’S ALGORITHM

Here, the client approaches the server.

Algorithm:
- Let S be the time server and Ts be its time.
- Process P requests the time from S.
- After receiving the request from P, S prepares a response and appends time Ts from its own clock
and then sends it back to P.
BERKELEY’S ALGORITHM
NETWORK TIME PROTOCOL

- Provides UTC synchronization service

across Internet

- Uses time servers to synchronize

networked processes.

- Time servers are connected by

synchronized subnet tree.

- The root is adjusted directly.

- Each node synchronizes its children

nodes.
LAMPORT’S CLOCK

- Lamport algorithm assigns logical timestamps to events.

- Each process has a counter (logical clock).

- Initially logical clock is set to 0.

- Process increments its counter when a send or a computation (comp) step is performed.

- Counter is assigned to event as its timestamp.

- Send(message) event carries its timestamp.

- On recv(message) event, the counter is updated by max(local clock, message timestamp) + 1

VECTOR CLOCK

- One integer can’t order event in more than one process.

- So, a Vector Clock (VC) is a vector of integers, one entry for each princess in the entire distributed

system.

- Label event e with VC(e) = [C1, C2, ..., Cn]

- Each entry Ck is a count of events in process k that causally precede e.

ELECTION ALGORITHM

- Many distributed algorithms need one process to act as coordinator.

- It doesn't matter which process does the job, just need to pick one.

- Election algorithms: technique to pick a unique coordinator (leader election).

- Types of election algorithms: Bully and Ring algorithms.

BULLY ALGORITHM
Bully algorithm requires one process to act as the coordinator. Suppose that there are 8 processes in the system, which are
numbered from 1 to 8. Initially, process 8 was the coordinator. However, it has just crashed. Process 5 is the first one to
notice this failure. The behaviour of the bully algorithm in this situation is illustrated below:
RING ALGORITHM
Ring algorithm requires one process to act as the coordinator. Suppose there are 6 processes in the system, which are
numbered from 0 to 5. Initially, process 5 was the coordinator. However it has just crashed. Process 1 notices this and
starts an election. The behavior of the ring algorithm in this situation is illustrated below:
CONCLUSION

- In terms of algorithms, we can conclude that for clock synchronization, both centralized and

distributed algorithms must account for the propagation time of messages among each node.

- The sequencing of processes and the preservation of resource status requires clock synchronization.

- When it comes to the concept of time in distributed systems, the most essential element is to get

the events in the right sequence.

- Events can be positioned either in chronological order with Physical Clocks or in a logical order with

Lamport's Logical Clocks and Vector Clocks along the execution timeline.
REFERENCES

[1] Latha, C. A., and H. L. Shashidhara. "Clock synchronization in distributed systems." In 2010 5th International Conference on
Industrial and Information Systems, pp. 475-480. IEEE, 2010.

[2] Horauer, Martin. "Clock synchronization in distributed systems." PhD diss., 2004.

[3] Sampath, Amritha, and C. Tripti. "Synchronization in distributed systems." In Advances in Computing and Information Technology,
pp. 417-424. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg, 2012.

[4] Biradar, Shripad, Santosh Durugkar, and Subhash Patil. "Handling Clock synchronization Anomalies in Distributed System."
[5] Simons, Barbara. "An overview of clock synchronization." Fault-Tolerant Distributed Computing (1990): 84-96.
[6] Welch, Jennifer Lundelius, and Nancy Lynch. "A new fault-tolerant algorithm for clock synchronization." Information and
computation 77, no. 1 (1988): 1-36.
[7] Arghavani, A., E. Ahmadi, and A. T. Haghighat. "Improved bully election algorithm in distributed systems." In ICIMU 2011:
Proceedings of the 5th international Conference on Information Technology & Multimedia, pp. 1-6. IEEE, 2011.
[8] Soundarabai, Paulsingh & Thriveni, J. & Manjunatha, H. & K R, Venugopal & Patnaik, Lalit. (2013). Message Efficient Ring Leader
Election in Distributed Systems.
[9] Baldoni, Roberto, and Michel Raynal. "Fundamentals of distributed computing: A practical tour of vector clock systems." IEEE
Distributed Systems Online 3, no. 2 (2002): 12.
 THANK YOU

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