EFFICIENT TOKEN-BASED CONTROL IN RINGS

In this paper we deal with the efficiency of token-based strategies fo r the basic problem of controlling the allocation of a shared resource in a ring of n processing entities. We propose new protocols that all ow a bounded number of exchanged messages per access request to the re source, while this amount is unbounded for classical solutions. We als o guarantee all the requests to be served within a maximum delay. The new proposed protocols are request-message-based strategies, in that a process entity sends a message to ''inform'' the token of the access request. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.