Passing Messages while Sharing Memory

Abstract

We introduce a new distributed computing model called m&m that allows processes to both pass messages and share memory. Motivated by recent hardware trends, we find that this model improves the power of the pure message-passing and shared-memory models. As we demonstrate by example with two fundamental problems---consensus and eventual leader election---the added power leads to new algorithms that are more robust against failures and asynchrony. Our consensus algorithm combines the superior scalability of message passing with the higher fault tolerance of shared memory, while our leader election algorithms reduce the system synchrony needed for correctness. These results point to a wide new space for future exploration of other problems, techniques, and benefits.