A paradigm for distributed deadlock avoidance in multicomputer networks

Abstract

A paradigm for avoiding buffer deadlock in point-to-point multicomputer networks is presented which is ideal for today's high connectivity, load sharing networks. Unlike the traditional resource ordering principle, this paradigm not only allows unrestricted routing but uses the existence of multiple paths to its direct advantage. Deadlock is avoided entirely using exchange buffers which are not used for message queues, thus eliminating queueing overhead. The paradigm is topology-independent, imposes no routing restrictions, and uses states of neighboring links only, so that it can be built into link level protocol, providing unrestricted deadlock-free routing, while operating transparent to any fault-tolerant topology-specific routing algorithm.<>