Abstract
The concept of one event happening before another in a distributed system is examined, and is shown to define a partial ordering of the events. A distributed algorithm is given for synchronizing a system of logical clocks which can be used to totally order the events. The use of the total ordering is illustrated with a method for solving synchronization problems. The algorithm is then specialized for synchronizing physical clocks, and a bound is derived on how far out of synchrony the clocks can become.
Keywords
SynchronizingComputer scienceSynchronization (alternating current)Event (particle physics)Distributed computingClock synchronizationDistributed algorithmAlgorithmTheoretical computer scienceReal-time computingComputer networkPhysicsTelecommunications
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Publication Info
- Year
- 1978
- Type
- article
- Volume
- 21
- Issue
- 7
- Pages
- 558-565
- Citations
- 8350
- Access
- Closed
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Cite This
Leslie Lamport
(1978).
Time, clocks, and the ordering of events in a distributed system.
Communications of the ACM
, 21
(7)
, 558-565.
https://doi.org/10.1145/359545.359563
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1145/359545.359563