Firefly-inspired Heartbeat Synchronization in Overlay Networks*

Heartbeat synchronization strives to have nodes in a distributed system generate periodic, local "heartbeat" events approximately at the same time. Many useful distributed protocols rely on the existence of such heartbeats for driving their cycle-based execution. Yet, solving the problem in environments where nodes are unreliable and messages are subject to delays and failures is non-trivial. We present a heartbeat synchronization protocol for overlay networks inspired by mathematical models of flash synchronization in certain species of fireflies. In our protocol, nodes send flash messages to their neighbors when a local heartbeat triggers. They adjust the phase of their next heartbeat based on incoming flash messages using an algorithm inspired by mathematical models of firefly synchronization. We report simulation results of the protocol in various realistic failure scenarios typical in overlay networks and show that synchronization emerges even when messages can have significant delay subject to large jitter.