Birman Schiper Stephenson Protocol

This algorithm is used to maintain the causal ordering of the messages i.e. the message which is sent first should be received first. If send (M1)–>send(M2) then for all processes which receive the messages M1 and M2 should receive M1 before M2. Features :

• Broadcast based messaging.
• Size of the messages are small.
• More no. of messages are sent.
• Limited state information.

Key Points :

• Each process increases its vector clock by 1 upon sending of messages.
• Message is delivered to a process if the process has received all the messages preceding to it.
• Else buffer the message.
• Update the vector clock for the process.

Reference :

• Process: P_i
• Event: e_ij , where i:process is number & j: jth event in ith process.
• T_m:vector time stamp for message m.
• C_i vector clock associated with process P_i; j^th element is C_i[j] and contains P_i‘s latest value for the current time in process P_j

Protocol : P_i sending a message to P_j –

• P_i increments C_i[i] and sets the timestamp t_m = C_i[i] for message m.

P_j receiving a message from P_i –

• When P_j, j != i, receives m with timestamp t_m, it delays the message’s delivery until both these conditions are met:

Cj[i] = tm[i] - 1; and
for all k <= n and k != i, Cj[k] >= tm[k].

• When the message is delivered to P_j, update P_j‘s vector clock.
• Check buffer to see if any can be delivered.

Example –

• Initial state for all the processes are 000.
• M1 is broadcasted from P3 to P1 and P2. e31 updates the vector clock to (001) and sends P1 and P2.
• P2 accepts the M1 with timestamp (001) because when it compares it with its initial timestamp i.e. (000) it finds that M1 is the 1st message it is receiving.
• Now we consider that before M1 could reach P1, P2 sends M2 to P1 and P3 with time stamp (011).
• P1 could not accept M2 because upon comparing the timestamp of M2 with its initial timestamp a discrepancy is found because P1 has no message with timestamp (001) received earlier, so M2 is stored in buffer.
• Now M1 is received by P1 and accepted.
• M2 is removed from buffer and accepted by P1.
• M2 is accepted by P3 as there is no discrepancy in the time stamp.