On the interconnection of causal memory systems

Abstract

In this paper, we look at the interconnection of propagation-based causal Distributed shared memory (DSM) systems. We present extremely simple protocols to interconnect two such systems (possibly implemented with different algorithms), that only require the existence of a bidirectional reliable FIFO channel connecting one process from each system. We show that the resulting DSM system is also causal. This result can be used to interconnect any number of DSM propagation-based causal systems, by interconnecting them in pairs with a tree topology.