Message efficient ring leader election in distributed systems

Abstract

Leader Election Algorithm, not only in distributed systems but in any communication network, is an essential matter for discussion. Tremendous amount of work are happening in the research community on election as network protocols are in need of co-ordinator process for the smooth running of the system. These so called Coordinator processes are responsible for the synchronization of the system otherwise, the system loses its reliability. Furthermore, if the leader process crashes, the new leader process should take the charge as early as possible. New leader is one among the currently running processes with the highest process id. In this paper we have presented a modified version of ring algorithm. Our work involves substantial modifications of the existing ring election algorithm and the comparison of message complexity with the original algorithm. Simulation results show that our algorithm minimizes the number of messages even in worst case scenario. © 2013 Springer Science+Business Media.