Slack elasticity in concurrent computing

Abstract

We present conditions under which we can modify the slack of a channel in a distributed computation without changing its behavior. These results can be used to modify the degree of pipelining in an asynchronous system. The generality of the result shows the wide variety of pipelining alternatives presented to the designer of a concurrent system. We give examples of program transformations which can be used in the design of concurrent systems whose correctness depends on the conditions presented.