Coupling-Based Internal Clock Synchronization for Large-Scale Dynamic Distributed Systems

This paper studies the problem of realizing a common software clock among a large set of nodes without an external time reference (i.e., internal clock synchronization), any centralized control and where nodes can join and leave the distributed system at their will. The paper proposes an internal clock synchronization algorithm which combines the gossip-based paradigm with a nature-inspired approach, coming from the coupled oscillators phenomenon, to cope with scale and churn. The algorithm works on the top of an overlay network and uses a uniform peer sampling service to fullfill each node’s local view. Therefore, differently from clock synchronization protocols for small scale and static distributed systems, here each node synchronizes regularly with only the neighbors in its local view and not with the whole system. Theoretical and empirical evaluations of the convergence speed and of the synchronization error of the coupled-based internal clock synchronization algorithm have be...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: TPDS
• Authors: Roberto Baldoni, Angelo Corsaro, Leonardo Querzoni, Sirio Scipioni, Sara Tucci Piergiovanni
• Keywords: Algorithm, Clock Synchronization, Internal Clock Synchronization, TPDS 2010