A Barrier Synchronization Protocol for Broadcast Networks Based on Dynamic Access Control

In this paper, the authors propose a fast barrier synchronization protocol for broadcast networks. A key point of the protocol is to avoid the performance degradation due to low level network protocol (e.g., conflicts in CSMA/CD) and that due to high level protocol (e.g., inefficiency of static ordering of bus accesses) by introducing a mechanism for dynamic access control to the broadcast channel. They implemented the proposed protocol on a local area network, and conducted several experiments. The result of experiments indicates that it could significantly improve the performance of conventional protocols in a wide range of distributions of arrival timings of processes to their synchronization point.