Efficient ordered broadcasting in reliable CSMA/CD networks

Abstract

Ordered broadcast is a communication paradigm which requires that all the nodes in the network receive a message, and that the nodes receive the different messages in the same order. Ordered broadcast is particularly useful for supporting fault tolerance in distributed systems. We present a protocol for ordered broadcasts in a CSMA/CD network that uses the high reliability and collision detection properties of these networks in a novel manner. The control of the protocol is distributed, and even if the sender of a message fails after transmitting a message which is missed by some nodes, the ordered broadcast property is satisfied. The protocol has a small overhead, but requires both hardware and software support for implementation.