The Impossibility of Implementing Reliable communication in the Face of Crashes

Abstract

An important function of communication networks is to implement reliable data transfer over an unreliable underlying network. Formal specifications are given for reliable and unreliable communication layers, in terms of I/O automata. Based on these specifications, it is proved that no reliable communication protocol can tolerate crashes of the processors on which the protocol runs.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 01, 1991
Accession Number
ADA241291

Entities

People

  • Alan Fekete
  • John Spinelli
  • Nancy Lynch
  • Yishay Mansour

Organizations

  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Materials and Manufacturing Processes

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Application Software
  • Automata
  • Classification
  • Computer Networks
  • Computer Science
  • Computers
  • Data Links
  • Data Transmission
  • Digital Communications
  • Machines
  • Network Science
  • Networks
  • Notation
  • Specifications
  • Transmitting
  • Transport Protocols

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Computer Networking
  • Mathematical Modeling and Probability Theory.