Logical Synchrony Networks: A formal model for deterministic distribution

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Kenwright, Logan, Roop, Partha, Allen, Nathan, Lall, Sanjay, Cascaval, Calin, Spalink, Tammo, Izzard, Martin
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Kenwright, Logan
Roop, Partha
Allen, Nathan
Lall, Sanjay
Cascaval, Calin
Spalink, Tammo
Izzard, Martin
author_facet Kenwright, Logan
Roop, Partha
Allen, Nathan
Lall, Sanjay
Cascaval, Calin
Spalink, Tammo
Izzard, Martin
contents Kahn Process Networks (KPNs) are a deterministic Model of Computation (MoC) for distributed systems. KPNs supports non-blocking writes and blocking reads, with the consequent assumption of unbounded buffers between processes. Variants such as Finite FIFO Platforms (FFP) have been developed, which enforce boundedness. One issue with existing models is that they mix process synchronisation with process execution. In this paper we address how these two facets may be decoupled. This paper explores a recent alternative called bittide, which decouples the execution of a process from the control needed for process synchronisation, and thus preserves determinism and boundedness while ensuring pipelined execution for better throughput. Our intuition is that such an approach could leverage not only determinism and buffer boundedness but may potentially offer better overall throughput. To understand the behavior of these systems we define a formal model -- a deterministic MoC called Logical Synchrony Networks (LSNs). LSNs describes a network of processes modelled as a graph, with edges representing invariant logical delays between a producer process and the corresponding consumer process. We show that this abstraction is satisfied by KPNs. Subsequently, we show that both FFPs and bittide faithfully implement this abstraction. Thus, we show for the first time that FFPs and bittide offer two alternative ways of implementing deterministic distributed systems with the latter being more performant.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_07433
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Logical Synchrony Networks: A formal model for deterministic distribution
Kenwright, Logan
Roop, Partha
Allen, Nathan
Lall, Sanjay
Cascaval, Calin
Spalink, Tammo
Izzard, Martin
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Formal Languages and Automata Theory
Kahn Process Networks (KPNs) are a deterministic Model of Computation (MoC) for distributed systems. KPNs supports non-blocking writes and blocking reads, with the consequent assumption of unbounded buffers between processes. Variants such as Finite FIFO Platforms (FFP) have been developed, which enforce boundedness. One issue with existing models is that they mix process synchronisation with process execution. In this paper we address how these two facets may be decoupled. This paper explores a recent alternative called bittide, which decouples the execution of a process from the control needed for process synchronisation, and thus preserves determinism and boundedness while ensuring pipelined execution for better throughput. Our intuition is that such an approach could leverage not only determinism and buffer boundedness but may potentially offer better overall throughput. To understand the behavior of these systems we define a formal model -- a deterministic MoC called Logical Synchrony Networks (LSNs). LSNs describes a network of processes modelled as a graph, with edges representing invariant logical delays between a producer process and the corresponding consumer process. We show that this abstraction is satisfied by KPNs. Subsequently, we show that both FFPs and bittide faithfully implement this abstraction. Thus, we show for the first time that FFPs and bittide offer two alternative ways of implementing deterministic distributed systems with the latter being more performant.
title Logical Synchrony Networks: A formal model for deterministic distribution
topic Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Formal Languages and Automata Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.07433