Local states in distributed computations
Eddy Fromentin, Michel Raynal · ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review · 1994
If events produced by processes of a distributed computation are generally supposed to be instantaneous, it is not the case for local states generated by these events. Due to message exchanges and synchronization local states have some duration. This paper defines notions about local states such as weak precedence, strong precedence, weak concurrency and strong concurrency . Moreover a few formulas based on vector clocks, and consequently usable in an operational context, are introduced to decide about relations between local states. These relations and formulas can be used either to debug, test or analyze distributed programs (especially for global properties detection) or to define consistent checkpoints.