Granular synchrony: a new network timing model for distributed computing

Today’s mainstream network timing models for distributed computing are synchrony, partial synchrony, and asynchrony. These models are coarse grained and often make either too strong or too weak assumptions about the network.

In this talk, Ling Ren (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) introduces a new network timing model called “granular synchrony” that models the network as a mixture of synchronous, partially synchronous, and asynchronous communication links. The new model is not only theoretically interesting but also more representative of real-world networks. We identify necessary and sufficient conditions for solving crash and Byzantine consensus in granular synchrony.

About the presenter

Ling is an assistant professor in the Siebel School of Computing and Data Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He obtained his Ph.D. from MIT and worked at VMware Research. His research interests span cryptography, computer security, and distributed algorithms.

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