An Efficient Implementation of Sequentially Consistent Distributed Shared Memories

Recently, distributed shared memory systems have received much attention because such an abstraction simpliies programming. In this paper , we present a data consistency protocol for a distributed system which implements sequentially consistent memories. The protocol is aimed at an environment where no special support for atomic broadcast exists. As compared to previously proposed protocols, our protocol eliminates the need of atomic broadcast and signiicantly reduces the amount of information ow among the processors. This is realized by maintaining state information and capturing causal relations among read and write operations. Une mise en oeuvre eecace de la coh erence s equentielle pour les m emoires r eparties R esum e : Cet article pr esente un protocole qui maintient la coh erence s equentielle pour une m emoire partag ee support ee par un ensemble de m e-moires locales r eparties. Le crit ere de coh erence s equentiel, propos e par Lam-port, garantit que toute ex ecution parall ele d'un programme est equivalente a une ex ecution de ce m^ eme programme sur un mono-processeur. Le proto-cole propos e ne n ecessite pas de primitive de diiusion, contrairement a la plupart des autres protocoles qui r ealisent ce crit ere de coh erence; il est fond e sur la capture des relations de causalit e entre les lectures et les ecritures.