#Number
TR-PDS-1995-003

#Title
Sequential Distributed Coordination

#Author
Aleta Ricciardi

#Abstract 
We give a broad characterization of distributed coordination, building on a
basic agreement clause, then defining a generic sequence clause and a
generic termination clause.  We instantiate these to obtain common
problems.  Our decomposition isolates communication costs due solely to
ordering or termination, giving a clear way of comparing coordination
problems.  We further explore the notion of exempting processes from
participating in the coordination, and show that any problem in which
exempt processes must be made to appear as if they had crashed is equally
hard irrespective of channel properties (lossy or reliable).  While
somewhat surprising, this result also exposes why coordination is
difficult, and reasonable ways to weaken it for systems prone partitioning.

Keywords: Asynchronous, coordination, failures, sequence, termination.  


#Bib
@InProceedings{,
  author = 	 "Aleta Ricciardi",
  title = 	 "Sequential Distributed Coordination",
  booktitle =	 "Submitted to WDAG95",
  address =	 "  ",
  month =	 "May",
  note =	 1995,
  note =	 "available via ftp or WWW at maple.ece.utexas.edu
		  as technical report TR-PDS-1995-003"
}