Order notions and atomic multicast in distributed systems: a short survey

The understanding of precedence relations between events and the definition of high-level communication primitives are two main issues in the architecture and software engineering of distributed systems and distributed kernels. The author studies different mechanisms that allow timestamping of events produced by distributed executions. Their relative properties are analyzed in depth and some of their possible uses are exhibited. Communication primitives which could be offered by a distributed kernel are discussed. A list and an assessment of such primitive are given. Essentially, the author presents a survey of timestamping mechanisms and communication primitives for the purpose of building an abstract distributed machine that is easier to use than the underlying one