Probabilistic Clock Synchronization in Distributed Systems

Presents and analyzes a new probabilistic clock synchronization algorithm that can guarantee a much smaller bound on the clock skew than most existing algorithms. The algorithm is probabilistic in the sense that the bound on the clock skew that it guarantees has a probability of invalidity associated with it. However, the probability of invalidity may be made extremely small by transmitting a sufficient number of synchronization messages. It is shown that an upper bound on the probability of invalidity decreases exponentially with the number of synchronization messages transmitted. A closed-form expression that relates the probability of invalidity to the clock skew and the number of synchronization messages is also derived. >

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