Fault-Tolerant External Clock Synchronization

Research output: Contribution to conferencesPaperContributedpeer-review

Contributors

Abstract

We address the problem of how to integrate fault-tolerant internal and external clock synchronization. We propose a new algorithm which provides both external and internal clock synchronization for as long as no more than F reference time servers out of a total of 2F+1 are faulty. When the number of faulty reference time servers exceeds F, the algorithm degrades to a fault-tolerant internal clock synchronization algorithm. We prove that at least 2F+1 reference time servers are necessary for achieving external clock synchronization when up to F reference time servers can suffer arbitrary failures, thus our algorithm provides maximum fault-tolerance. The algorithm is also optimal in another sense: we show that the maximum deviation between reference time and the clocks of nonreference time servers is minimal.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages70-82
Number of pages13
Publication statusPublished - 1995
Peer-reviewedYes

Conference

Title1995 15th International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems
Conference number15
Duration30 May - 2 June 1995
Degree of recognitionInternational event
CityVancouver
CountryCanada

Keywords

Research priority areas of TU Dresden

DFG Classification of Subject Areas according to Review Boards

Keywords

  • Extermal Clock Synchronization, Internal Clock Synchronization, Lower Bounds, Optimal External Clock Synchronisation, Fault tolerance, Clocks, Synchronization, Degradation, reliability, real-time system, fault-tolerant external clock synchronization, external clock synchronization, internal clock synchronization, reference time servers, fault-tolerant internal clock synchronization algorithm