Chapter 18: Distributed

Coordination

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Chapter 18: Distributed Coordination
 Event Ordering
 Mutual Exclusion
 Atomicity
 Concurrency Control
 Deadlock Handling
 Election Algorithms
 Reaching Agreement

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.2 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Chapter Objectives
 To describe various methods for achieving mutual exclusion in a
distributed system

 To explain how atomic transactions can be implemented in a

distributed system

 To show how some of the concurrency-control schemes discussed in

Chapter 6 can be modified for use in a distributed environment

 To present schemes for handling deadlock prevention, deadlock

avoidance, and deadlock detection in a distributed system

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.3 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Event Ordering
 Happened-before relation (denoted by )
 If A and B are events in the same process, and A was executed
before B, then A  B
 If A is the event of sending a message by one process and B is the
event of receiving that message by another process, then A  B
 If A  B and B  C then A  C

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.4 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Relative Time for
Three Concurrent Processes

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.5 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Implementation of 
 Associate a timestamp with each system event
 Require that for every pair of events A and B, if A  B, then the
timestamp of A is less than the timestamp of B
 Within each process Pi a logical clock, LCi is associated
 The logical clock can be implemented as a simple counter that is
incremented between any two successive events executed within
a process
 Logical clock is monotonically increasing
 A process advances its logical clock when it receives a message
whose timestamp is greater than the current value of its logical clock
 If the timestamps of two events A and B are the same, then the events
are concurrent
 We may use the process identity numbers to break ties and to
create a total ordering

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.6 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Distributed Mutual Exclusion (DME)
 Assumptions
 The system consists of n processes; each process Pi resides at a
different processor
 Each process has a critical section that requires mutual exclusion

 Requirement
 If Pi is executing in its critical section, then no other process Pj is
executing in its critical section

 We present two algorithms to ensure the mutual exclusion execution

of processes in their critical sections

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.7 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 DME: Centralized Approach

 One of the processes in the system is chosen to coordinate the entry

to the critical section
 A process that wants to enter its critical section sends a request
message to the coordinator
 The coordinator decides which process can enter the critical section
next, and its sends that process a reply message
 When the process receives a reply message from the coordinator, it
enters its critical section
 After exiting its critical section, the process sends a release message
to the coordinator and proceeds with its execution
 This scheme requires three messages per critical-section entry:
 request
 reply
 release

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.8 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 DME: Fully Distributed Approach
 When process Pi wants to enter its critical section, it generates a new
timestamp, TS, and sends the message request (Pi, TS) to all other
processes in the system

 When process Pj receives a request message, it may reply

immediately or it may defer sending a reply back

 When process Pi receives a reply message from all other processes in

the system, it can enter its critical section

 After exiting its critical section, the process sends reply messages to
all its deferred requests

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.9 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 DME: Fully Distributed Approach (Cont.)
 The decision whether process Pj replies immediately to a request(Pi,
TS) message or defers its reply is based on three factors:
 If Pj is in its critical section, then it defers its reply to Pi
 If Pj does not want to enter its critical section, then it sends a reply
immediately to Pi
 If Pj wants to enter its critical section but has not yet entered it,
then it compares its own request timestamp with the timestamp TS
 If its own request timestamp is greater than TS, then it sends a
reply immediately to Pi (Pi asked first)
 Otherwise, the reply is deferred

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.10 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Desirable Behavior of
Fully Distributed Approach
 Freedom from Deadlock is ensured

 Freedom from starvation is ensured, since entry to the critical section

is scheduled according to the timestamp ordering
 The timestamp ordering ensures that processes are served in a
first-come, first served order

 The number of messages per critical-section entry is

2 x (n – 1)

This is the minimum number of required messages per critical-section

entry when processes act independently and concurrently

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.11 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Three Undesirable Consequences
 The processes need to know the identity of all other processes in the
system, which makes the dynamic addition and removal of processes
more complex

 If one of the processes fails, then the entire scheme collapses

 This can be dealt with by continuously monitoring the state of all
the processes in the system

 Processes that have not entered their critical section must pause
frequently to assure other processes that they intend to enter the
critical section
 This protocol is therefore suited for small, stable sets of
cooperating processes

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.12 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Token-Passing Approach
 Circulate a token among processes in system
 Token is special type of message
 Possession of token entitles holder to enter critical section

 Processes logically organized in a ring structure

 Unidirectional ring guarantees freedom from starvation

 Two types of failures

 Lost token – election must be called
 Failed processes – new logical ring established

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.13 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Atomicity
 Either all the operations associated with a program unit are executed
to completion, or none are performed

 Ensuring atomicity in a distributed system requires a transaction

coordinator, which is responsible for the following:
 Starting the execution of the transaction
 Breaking the transaction into a number of subtransactions, and
distribution these subtransactions to the appropriate sites for
execution
 Coordinating the termination of the transaction, which may result
in the transaction being committed at all sites or aborted at all
sites

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.14 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Two-Phase Commit Protocol (2PC)
 Assumes fail-stop model

 Execution of the protocol is initiated by the coordinator after the last

step of the transaction has been reached

 When the protocol is initiated, the transaction may still be executing at

some of the local sites

 The protocol involves all the local sites at which the transaction
executed

 Example: Let T be a transaction initiated at site Si and let the

transaction coordinator at Si be Ci

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.15 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Phase 1: Obtaining a Decision
 Ci adds <prepare T> record to the log

 Ci sends <prepare T> message to all sites

 When a site receives a <prepare T> message, the transaction manager

determines if it can commit the transaction
 If no: add <no T> record to the log and respond to Ci with <abort T>
 If yes:
 add <ready T> record to the log
 force all log records for T onto stable storage
 send <ready T> message to Ci

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.16 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Phase 1 (Cont.)
 Coordinator collects responses
 All respond “ready”,
decision is commit
 At least one response is “abort”,
decision is abort
 At least one participant fails to respond within time out period,
decision is abort

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.17 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Phase 2: Recording Decision
in the Database
 Coordinator adds a decision record
<abort T> or <commit T>
to its log and forces record onto stable storage

 Once that record reaches stable storage it is irrevocable (even if

failures occur)

 Coordinator sends a message to each participant informing it of the

decision (commit or abort)

 Participants take appropriate action locally

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.18 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Failure Handling in 2PC – Site Failure
 The log contains a <commit T> record
 In this case, the site executes redo(T)

 The log contains an <abort T> record

 In this case, the site executes undo(T)

 The contains a <ready T> record; consult Ci

 If Ci is down, site sends query-status T message to the other sites

 The log contains no control records concerning T

 In this case, the site executes undo(T)

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.19 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Failure Handling in 2PC –
Coordinator Ci Failure

 If an active site contains a <commit T> record in its log, the T must be
committed

 If an active site contains an <abort T> record in its log, then T must be
aborted

 If some active site does not contain the record <ready T> in its log then
the failed coordinator Ci cannot have decided to
commit T
 Rather than wait for Ci to recover, it is preferable to abort T

 All active sites have a <ready T> record in their logs, but no additional
control records
 In this case we must wait for the coordinator to recover
 Blocking problem – T is blocked pending the recovery of site Si

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.20 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Concurrency Control
 Modify the centralized concurrency schemes to accommodate the
distribution of transactions

 Transaction manager coordinates execution of transactions (or

subtransactions) that access data at local sites

 Local transaction only executes at that site

 Global transaction executes at several sites

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.21 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Locking Protocols
 Can use the two-phase locking protocol in a distributed environment
by changing how the lock manager is implemented

 Nonreplicated scheme – each site maintains a local lock manager

which administers lock and unlock requests for those data items that
are stored in that site
 Simple implementation involves two message transfers for
handling lock requests, and one message transfer for handling
unlock requests
 Deadlock handling is more complex

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.22 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Single-Coordinator Approach
 A single lock manager resides in a single chosen site, all lock and
unlock requests are made a that site

 Simple implementation

 Simple deadlock handling

 Possibility of bottleneck

 Vulnerable to loss of concurrency controller if single site fails

 Multiple-coordinator approach distributes lock-manager function

over several sites

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.23 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Majority Protocol
 Avoids drawbacks of central control by dealing with replicated data in a
decentralized manner

 More complicated to implement

 Deadlock-handling algorithms must be modified; possible for deadlock

to occur in locking only one data item

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.24 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Biased Protocol
 Similar to majority protocol, but requests for shared locks prioritized
over requests for exclusive locks

 Less overhead on read operations than in majority protocol; but has

additional overhead on writes

 Like majority protocol, deadlock handling is complex

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.25 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Primary Copy
 One of the sites at which a replica resides is designated as the primary
site
 Request to lock a data item is made at the primary site of that data
item

 Concurrency control for replicated data handled in a manner similar to

that of unreplicated data

 Simple implementation, but if primary site fails, the data item is

unavailable, even though other sites may have a replica

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.26 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Timestamping
 Generate unique timestamps in distributed scheme:
 Each site generates a unique local timestamp
 The global unique timestamp is obtained by concatenation of the
unique local timestamp with the unique site identifier
 Use a logical clock defined within each site to ensure the fair
generation of timestamps

 Timestamp-ordering scheme – combine the centralized concurrency

control timestamp scheme with the 2PC protocol to obtain a protocol
that ensures serializability with no cascading rollbacks

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.27 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Generation of Unique Timestamps

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.28 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Deadlock Prevention
 Resource-ordering deadlock-prevention – define a global ordering
among the system resources
 Assign a unique number to all system resources
 A process may request a resource with unique number i only if it is
not holding a resource with a unique number grater than i
 Simple to implement; requires little overhead

 Banker’s algorithm – designate one of the processes in the system as

the process that maintains the information necessary to carry out the
Banker’s algorithm
 Also implemented easily, but may require too much overhead

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.29 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Timestamped Deadlock-
Prevention Scheme
 Each process Pi is assigned a unique priority number

 Priority numbers are used to decide whether a process Pi should wait

for a process Pj; otherwise Pi is rolled back

 The scheme prevents deadlocks

 For every edge Pi  Pj in the wait-for graph, Pi has a higher priority
than Pj
 Thus a cycle cannot exist

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.30 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Wait-Die Scheme
 Based on a nonpreemptive technique

 If Pi requests a resource currently held by Pj, Pi is allowed to wait only

if it has a smaller timestamp than does Pj (Pi is older than Pj)
 Otherwise, Pi is rolled back (dies)

 Example: Suppose that processes P1, P2, and P3 have timestamps 5,

10, and 15 respectively
 if P1 request a resource held by P2, then P1 will wait
 If P3 requests a resource held by P2, then P3 will be rolled back

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.31 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Would-Wait Scheme
 Based on a preemptive technique; counterpart to the wait-die system

 If Pi requests a resource currently held by Pj, Pi is allowed to wait only

if it has a larger timestamp than does Pj (Pi is younger than Pj).
Otherwise Pj is rolled back (Pj is wounded by Pi)

 Example: Suppose that processes P1, P2, and P3 have timestamps 5,

10, and 15 respectively
 If P1 requests a resource held by P2, then the resource will be
preempted from P2 and P2 will be rolled back
 If P3 requests a resource held by P2, then P3 will wait

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.32 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Deadlock Detection
 Use wait-for graphs
 Local wait-for graphs at each local site. The nodes of the graph
correspond to all the processes that are currently either holding or
requesting any of the resources local to that site
 May also use a global wait-for graph. This graph is the union of all
local wait-for graphs.

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.33 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Two Local Wait-For Graphs

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.34 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Global Wait-For Graph

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.35 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Deadlock Detection –
Centralized Approach

 Each site keeps a local wait-for graph

 A global wait-for graph is maintained in a single coordination process

 There are three different options (points in time) when the wait-for
graph may be constructed:
1. Whenever a new edge is inserted or removed in one of the local
wait-for graphs
2. Periodically, when a number of changes have occurred in a wait-
for graph
3. Whenever the coordinator needs to invoke the cycle-detection
algorithm

 Unnecessary rollbacks may occur as a result of false cycles

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.36 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Detection Algorithm Based on Option 3
 Append unique identifiers (timestamps) to requests form different sites

 When process Pi, at site A, requests a resource from process Pj, at site
B, a request message with timestamp TS is sent

 The edge Pi  Pj with the label TS is inserted in the local wait-for of A.

The edge is inserted in the local wait-for graph of B only if B has
received the request message and cannot immediately grant the
requested resource

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.37 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 The Algorithm
1. The controller sends an initiating message to each site in the system
2. On receiving this message, a site sends its local wait-for graph to the
coordinator
3. When the controller has received a reply from each site, it constructs a
graph as follows:
(a) The constructed graph contains a vertex for every process in the
system
(b) The graph has an edge Pi  Pj if and only if
(1) there is an edge Pi  Pj in one of the wait-for graphs, or
(2) an edge Pi  Pj with some label TS appears in more than one
wait-for graph
If the constructed graph contains a cycle  deadlock

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.38 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Local and Global Wait-For Graphs

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.39 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Fully Distributed Approach
 All controllers share equally the responsibility for detecting deadlock

 Every site constructs a wait-for graph that represents a part of the total
graph

 We add one additional node Pex to each local wait-for graph

 If a local wait-for graph contains a cycle that does not involve node Pex,
then the system is in a deadlock state

 A cycle involving Pex implies the possibility of a deadlock

 To ascertain whether a deadlock does exist, a distributed
deadlock-detection algorithm must be invoked

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.40 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Augmented Local Wait-For Graphs

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.41 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Augmented Local Wait-For Graph
in Site S2

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.42 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Election Algorithms
 Determine where a new copy of the coordinator should be restarted

 Assume that a unique priority number is associated with each active

process in the system, and assume that the priority number of process
Pi is I

 Assume a one-to-one correspondence between processes and sites

 The coordinator is always the process with the largest priority number.
When a coordinator fails, the algorithm must elect that active process
with the largest priority number

 Two algorithms, the bully algorithm and a ring algorithm, can be used
to elect a new coordinator in case of failures

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.43 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Bully Algorithm
 Applicable to systems where every process can send a message to
every other process in the system

 If process Pi sends a request that is not answered by the coordinator

within a time interval T, assume that the coordinator has failed; Pi tries
to elect itself as the new coordinator

 Pi sends an election message to every process with a higher priority

number, Pi then waits for any of these processes to answer within T

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.44 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Bully Algorithm (Cont.)
 If no response within T, assume that all processes with numbers
greater than i have failed; Pi elects itself the new coordinator

 If answer is received, Pi begins time interval T´, waiting to receive a

message that a process with a higher priority number has been
elected

 If no message is sent within T´, assume the process with a higher

number has failed; Pi should restart the algorithm

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.45 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Bully Algorithm (Cont.)
 If Pi is not the coordinator, then, at any time during execution, Pi may
receive one of the following two messages from process Pj
 Pj is the new coordinator (j > i). Pi, in turn, records this information
 Pj started an election (j > i). Pi, sends a response to Pj and begins
its own election algorithm, provided that Pi has not already initiated
such an election

 After a failed process recovers, it immediately begins execution of the

same algorithm

 If there are no active processes with higher numbers, the recovered

process forces all processes with lower number to let it become the
coordinator process, even if there is a currently active coordinator with
a lower number

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.46 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Ring Algorithm

 Applicable to systems organized as a ring (logically or physically)

 Assumes that the links are unidirectional, and that processes send their
messages to their right neighbors

 Each process maintains an active list, consisting of all the priority

numbers of all active processes in the system when the algorithm ends

 If process Pi detects a coordinator failure, I creates a new active list

that is initially empty. It then sends a message elect(i) to its right
neighbor, and adds the number i to its active list

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.47 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Ring Algorithm (Cont.)
 If Pi receives a message elect(j) from the process on the left, it must
respond in one of three ways:

1. If this is the first elect message it has seen or sent, Pi creates a

new active list with the numbers i and j
 It then sends the message elect(i), followed by the message
elect(j)
2. If i  j, then the active list for Pi now contains the numbers of all
the active processes in the system
 Pi can now determine the largest number in the active list to
identify the new coordinator process
3. If i = j, then Pi receives the message elect(i)
 The active list for Pi contains all the active processes in the
system
 Pi can now determine the new coordinator process.

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.48 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Reaching Agreement
 There are applications where a set of processes wish to agree on a
common “value”

 Such agreement may not take place due to:

 Faulty communication medium
 Faulty processes
 Processes may send garbled or incorrect messages to other
processes
 A subset of the processes may collaborate with each other in
an attempt to defeat the scheme

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.49 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Faulty Communications
 Process Pi at site A, has sent a message to process Pj at site B; to
proceed, Pi needs to know if Pj has received the message

 Detect failures using a time-out scheme

 When Pi sends out a message, it also specifies a time interval during
which it is willing to wait for an acknowledgment message form Pj
 When Pj receives the message, it immediately sends an
acknowledgment to Pi
 If Pi receives the acknowledgment message within the specified time
interval, it concludes that Pj has received its message
 If a time-out occurs, Pj needs to retransmit its message and wait
for an acknowledgment
 Continue until Pi either receives an acknowledgment, or is notified by
the system that B is down

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.50 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Faulty Communications (Cont.)
 Suppose that Pj also needs to know that Pi has received its
acknowledgment message, in order to decide on how to proceed
 In the presence of failure, it is not possible to accomplish this task
 It is not possible in a distributed environment for processes Pi and
Pj to agree completely on their respective states

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.51 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Faulty Processes
(Byzantine Generals Problem)

 Communication medium is reliable, but processes can fail in

unpredictable ways

 Consider a system of n processes, of which no more than m are faulty

 Suppose that each process Pi has some private value of Vi

 Devise an algorithm that allows each nonfaulty Pi to construct a vector

Xi = (Ai,1, Ai,2, …, Ai,n) such that::
 If Pj is a nonfaulty process, then Aij = Vj.
 If Pi and Pj are both nonfaulty processes, then Xi = Xj.

 Solutions share the following properties

 A correct algorithm can be devised only if n  3 x m + 1
 The worst-case delay for reaching agreement is proportionate to
m + 1 message-passing delays

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.52 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 Faulty Processes (Cont.)
 An algorithm for the case where m = 1 and n = 4 requires two rounds of
information exchange:
 Each process sends its private value to the other 3 processes
 Each process sends the information it has obtained in the first round
to all other processes

 If a faulty process refuses to send messages, a nonfaulty process can

choose an arbitrary value and pretend that that value was sent by that
process

 After the two rounds are completed, a nonfaulty process Pi can

construct its vector Xi = (Ai,1, Ai,2, Ai,3, Ai,4) as follows:
 Ai,j = Vi
 For j  i, if at least two of the three values reported for process Pj
agree, then the majority value is used to set the value of Aij
 Otherwise, a default value (nil) is used

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition 18.53 Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009
 End of Chapter 18

Operating System Concepts – 8th Edition Silberschatz, Galvin and Gagne ©2009