mwang (03/22/83)
DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO SEMINAR ACTIVITIES SYSTEMS SEMINAR - Monday, March 28, 1983. Mr. K. Marzullo of Stanford University Computer Systems Laboratory will speak on ``Maintaining the Time in a Distributed System''. TIME: 3.30 PM ROOM: MC 5158 ABSTRACT To a client, one of the simplest services provided by a distributed system is a time service. A client simply requests the time from any set of servers, and uses any reply. The simplicity in this interaction, however, misrepresents the complexity of implementing such a service. An algorithm is needed that will keep a set of clocks synchronized, reasonably accurate with respect to a standard, and able to withstand errors such as communication failures and inaccurate clocks. This talk will present a family of algorithms which im- plement a distributed, self-correcting time service. March 22, 1983