Distributed Algorithms Contents Index

States: Review

Answer these questions to review the webpage on States.

A distributed system consists of a set of agents and a set of channels.

  1. What is the state of a distributed system?
  3. When does the state of a distributed system change?
  4. Consider an example in which an agent sleeps for some time when it processes a message. Does the amount of time that the agent sleeps change the state transitions of the system?
  5. When does the state of an agent change?
  6. Describe how the state of a channel changes.
  7. What are the restrictions on a receive function of an agent?
  8. The parameters of a receive function are the message that arrived and the sender of the message. Why is it helpful for the receiver to have information about the sender of the message?
Next
States of a Distributed System.

Frequenty Asked Questions

K. Mani Chandy, Emeritus Simon Ramo Professor, California Institute of Technology