A 2-LEVEL DISTRIBUTED DETECTION ALGORITHM OF AND/OR DEADLOCKS

Abstract

Numerous algorithms on distributed deadlock detection in distributed systems have been proposed for various deadlock models such as the AND model, OR model, and AND/OR model. This paper describes a new distributed algorithm for the AND/OR model by two levels of deadlock detection procedures. In every deadlock model, the existence of a cycle in a wait-for graph is a necessary condition. At the first level of our algorithm, a wait-for cycle is detected with a very simple operation. If no cycle is found, a deadlock does not exist. In this level, deadlocks consisting of AND-requested nodes are detected, and for the cycle of AND- and OR-requested nodes, an initiator is elected and the second-level algorithm is initiated by the initiator. The second-level algorithm uses the deadlock detection method of Herman and Chandy, but the communication cost is reduced even in the worst case because the second-level operation can be initiated by only qualified initiators. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.