The distributed firing squad problem
Brian Coan, Danny Dolev, Cynthia Dwork, Larry Stockmeyer · 1985
this paper we justify the design assumption of simultaneous starts. Specifically, we provide algorithms to solve the associated synchronization problem, which we call the distributed firing squad problem (abbreviated DFS). A distributed algorithm for the DFS problem has two properties: (I) if any correct processor receives a .message to start a DFS synchronization, then at some future time all cor- rect processors will "fire" (formally, enter a special state), and (2) the correct processors all fire at exactly the same step