OPTIMIZING A GENERALIZED POLLING PROTOCOL FOR RESOURCE FINDING OVER AMULTIPLE-ACCESS CHANNEL

We consider a generalized polling protocol to locate (or find) resourc es known only by name in a distributed system interconnected by a bus- based multiple access channel. The set of nodes in the system are part itioned into a set of disjoint groups. To locate a resource, the searc hing node sequentially polls each one of the groups until the resource is found. This scheme is a generalization of both pure polling and br oadcast. Our basic aim is to show how to obtain an optimal division of the nodes into groups. To that end, a typical generalized polling pro tocol is analyzed and an efficient algorithm is given that provides a group division minimizing the expected cost per resource location oper ation.