Towards Partially Synchronous Overlays: Issues and Challenges

The main advantage of synchronous systems over asynchronous systems is that timing and reliability guarantees can be established ensuring a strong programming model for many applications. These strong guarantees are not provided by the current model of the Internet. However the Internet possesses some synchronous properties which can be exploited to observe partial synchrony, leading to a stronger programming model. In this paper, we argue the importance of synchrony and describe mechanisms which can be used for the construction of partially synchronous overlays on the Internet.