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Gossip Protocol Introduction - HTML

Gossip protocol is a communication protocol used in distributed systems where nodes periodically and randomly exchange information with other nodes. This allows information to spread throughout the system similarly to how gossip spreads among people. Each node stores and shares data with one randomly selected other node. The simple protocol allows for high scalability, reliability in changing networks, and no single point of failure. However, it also results in redundant transmissions and higher latency than some alternatives.

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108 views

Gossip Protocol Introduction - HTML

Gossip protocol is a communication protocol used in distributed systems where nodes periodically and randomly exchange information with other nodes. This allows information to spread throughout the system similarly to how gossip spreads among people. Each node stores and shares data with one randomly selected other node. The simple protocol allows for high scalability, reliability in changing networks, and no single point of failure. However, it also results in redundant transmissions and higher latency than some alternatives.

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newbieputrab13
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© © All Rights Reserved
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nuf said

yet another weblog

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Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Gossip Protocol: An Introduction


Gossip Protocol is a type of communication protocol used mostly in large
scale distributed systems. It is based upon gossip conversations which is
common in many social circles. Gossip Protocols are becoming
increasingly popular in distributed application due to its simplicity,
scalability and high reliability even in constantly changing environments.
Gossip Protocol involves periodic message exchanges between node
pairs, which eventually results in information being spread throughout
the system which is similar to human gossiping. It is sometimes referred
to as epidemic protocols because the information spread is similar to the
spread of a virus.

The operation of a gossip protocol is as follows.


Each node has some data associated with it and periodically
gossips that data with another node

Node A randomly selects a node B from a list of nodes known to it

A sends amessageto B containing the data from A

B sends back a response containing its data

A and B update their data set by merging it with the received data

Yes, it's all about that. The coreofthe protocol is really simple.

If we start with a single node having a specic data item, it will rst
gossip with another node. Then periodically each node will gossip that
data with one more node creating a doubling eect which will cause the
data to be distributed throughout the system fairly quickly.

Scalability is a huge strength of gossip protocols. As each node knows


only about a limited number of other nodes and as each node
communicates only with one other randomly selected node at a time and
sends only a xed number of messages, independent of the number of
nodes in the network, it provides good stable performance even when
the system keeps on growing in size.

Gossip protocols also cope very well with node churning. i.e. In rapidly
changing networks, when continuous node arrival and departure occurs
and even when nodes crash abruptly, gossip protocols perform well due
to the randomized and periodic information exchange. Loss of messages
will also be tolerated due to the fact that copies of same data item will be
received from multiple nodes. Also none of the nodes have specic roles
assigned to them. So a failed node will not prevent other nodes from
continuing sending messages and hence there will be no single point of
failure and there is no need for failure detection or specic recovery
actions.

Other strength is the simplicity of the protocol. It is really easy


implement and maintain a gossip based solution.

Shortcomings of gossip protocols involve the built in redundancy of the


protocol. The same redundancy which makes gossip inherently fault-
tolerant and robust also leads to unnecessary transmission overhead in
the network.

Another problem is high latency of message delivery. Message exchange


is done periodically. Also nodes may choose other nodes with which it
may have already communicated and it will take a long time for the
message to reach the desired destination as it has to go through several
other nodes to reach there. So gossip is necessarily slow and is
unsuitable for real-time systems where speed is the goal.

References:

Bakhshi, R., Cloth, L., Fokkink, W., & Haverkort, B. (2009).


Mean-eld analysis for the evaluation of gossip protocols.
Quantitative Evaluation of Systems, 2009. QEST09. Sixth
International Conference on the (pp. 247256). IEEE.

Birman, K. (2007). The Promise , and Limitations , of Gossip


Protocols. ACM SIGOPS Operating Systems Review, 41(5), 8-13.

Several other online resources

Mohamed Nufail at 10:46 PM


6 comments:

Manoj Balasooriya February 9, 2012 at 4:46 PM


An hour ago a bomb blew up the Kremlin. The president has initiated
Ghost protocol. Entire IMF has been disavowed. :-P. :-P
Reply

Mohamed Nufail February 9, 2012 at 9:43 PM


I did think that someone might confuse it with "Ghost Protocol". and the
rst thought was it would probably be someone like you :P
Reply

naim darson February 27, 2013 at 11:41 PM


Hi nufail, this is an interesting protocol. can you give me an example of
other protocol that is comparable with gossip protocol?
Reply

Mohamed Nufail February 28, 2013 at 12:42 PM


Hi Naim,
Gossip protocol could be used to communicate within a group of nodes
in a network. So if you use it as a group communication protocol, you
can compare it with others such as IP multicast, reliable broadcast and
derivations of those.
Reply

naim darson February 28, 2013 at 10:47 PM


thank you so much nufail! may I have your e-mail address?
Reply

Mohamed Nufail March 2, 2013 at 8:22 PM


Hi Naim, I've added you on G+.
Reply

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Mohamed Nufail
Graduate of Department of Computer Science and Engineering,
University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka
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