Research Initiation: Performance Evaluation of Distributed Algorithms

本研究的目的是开发一个仿真试验台，以全面研究分布式算法的性能问题。已经设计了许多分布式算法来解决分布式计算的一些核心问题，如排除、同步和死锁检测。然而，很少有人致力于试图预测这些算法在不同操作条件下的性能的研究。这项研究将确定一组通用的性能指标和影响不同算法性能的主要因素。基于上述指标，模拟试验台将被用于实现两个目标：对于给定的问题(例如，同步)和运行条件(例如，全连通的网络拓扑)确定最佳可用的算法；使用性能结果来开发一个假设来表示分布式算法的复杂性，并对给定问题的不同算法进行定量比较。这项研究将集中在一系列问题上，这些问题已经通过使用已知算法的不同组合和扩展来解决。性能模型将使用模块化的“构建块”方法来开发，以利用这些问题解决方案中的共性。

This research aims to develop a simulation testbed to study performance issues of distributed algorithms in a comprehensive manner. A number of distributed algorithms have been designed to solve some of the central problems of distributed computing like exclusion, synchronization, and deadlock detection. However, little effort has been devoted to studies that attempt to predict the performance of these algorithms under different operating conditions. The research will identify a common set of performance metrics and the primary factors that affect performance of different algorithms. Based on the above metrics, the simulation testbed will be used to achieve two objectives: for given problem (example, synchronization) and operating conditions (example, fully connected network topology) identify "best" available algorithm; use the performance results to develop a hypothesis to express the complexity of distributed algorithms and to quantitatively compare different algorithms for a given problem. The study will focus on a set of problems, which have been solved by using different combinations and extensions of known algorithms. Performance models will be developed using a modular, "building block" approach to exploit the commonality in the solution of these problems.