The Entropy of a Distributed Computing Schedule - the Example of Population Protocols - Inria - Institut national de recherche en sciences et technologies du numérique Accéder directement au contenu
Communication Dans Un Congrès Année : 2015

The Entropy of a Distributed Computing Schedule - the Example of Population Protocols

Résumé

A distributed computing system can be viewed as the result of the interplay between a distributed algorithm specifying the effects of a local event (e.g. reception of a message), and an adversary choosing the interleaving (schedule) of these events in the execution. For some problems, assuming that the adversary selects the schedule according to some probability distribution greatly helps to devise (almost) correct solutions. But how much randomness is really necessary? To what extent does a problem admit implementations that are robust against a " not so random " schedule? This paper takes a first step in addressing this question by borrowing the concept of T-randomness, 0 ≤ T ≤ 1, from algorithmic information theory. Roughly speaking, the value T fixes the entropy rate of the considered schedules. For instance, the case T = 1 corresponds, in a specific sense, to schedules in which events are independent and sampled uniformly (perfect randomness). The holy grail question can then be precisely stated as determining the optimal entropy rate to solve a given problem. We first show that perfect randomness is never required. Precisely, if a finite-state algorithm solves a problem with 1-randomness, then this algorithm still solves the same problem with T-randomness for some T < 1. Second, we illustrate how to compute bounds on the optimal entropy rate of a specific problem, namely the leader election problem.
Fichier principal
Vignette du fichier
ait_fairness_pp.pdf (562.48 Ko) Télécharger le fichier
Origine : Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s)
Loading...

Dates et versions

hal-01247020 , version 1 (21-12-2015)

Identifiants

  • HAL Id : hal-01247020 , version 1

Citer

Joffroy Beauquier, Peva Blanchard, Janna Burman, Rachid Guerraoui. The Entropy of a Distributed Computing Schedule - the Example of Population Protocols. International Conference on Principles of DIstributed Systems (OPODIS 2015), Dec 2015, Rennes, France. ⟨hal-01247020⟩
164 Consultations
233 Téléchargements

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More