A taxonomy of distributed termination detection algorithms

Abstract

An important problem in the field of distributed systems is that of detecting the termination of a distributed computation. Distributed termination detection (DTD) is a difficult problem due to the fact that there is no simple way of gaining knowledge of the global state of the system. Of the algorithms proposed in the last 15 years, there are many similarities. We have categorized these algorithms based on the following factors: algorithm type (e.g., wave, credit-recovery), required network topology, algorithm symmetry, required process knowledge, communication protocol (synchronous or asynchronous), communication channel behavior (first-in first-out (FIFO) or non-FIFO), message optimality, and fault tolerance. This methodology is intended to guide future research in DTD algorithms (since research continues on these algorithms) as well as to provide a classification survey for this area.