How to Share an Object: A Fast Timing-Based Solution

We consider the problem of transforming a given sequential implementation of a data structure into a wait-free concurrent implementation. Given the code for different operations of an object that is designed to work under the assumption that only a single process accesses it, we want to construct an implementation that works correctly in a concurrent environment where it may be accessed by many processes. We assume a shared memory model with atomic registers. It is well known that using atomic registers it is impossible to construct concurrent implementations of even very simple objects such as test-and-set bits. However, we show that the knowledge about relative speeds of processes can be used for such implementations. We assume that there is a known upper bound on the time taken by the slowest process to execute a statement involving an access to the shared memory. This timing assumption is very powerful and enables us to construct fast wait-free implementations of data structures ...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 1993
• Where: SPDP
• Authors: Rajeev Alur, Gadi Taubenfeld
• Keywords: Concurrent Implementations, Distributed And Parallel Computing, Sequential Implementation, Shared Memory, SPDP 1993