Optimizing a Generalized Polling Protocol for Resource Finding over a Multiple Access Channel

We consider a generalized polling protocol to locate (or find) resources known only by name in a distributed system interconnected by a bus-based multiple access channel. The set of nodes in the system are partitioned into a set of disjoint groups. To locate a resource, the searching node sequentially polls each one of the groups until the resource is found. This scheme is a generalization of both pure polling and broadcast. Our basic aim is to show how to obtain an optimal division of the nodes into groups. To that end, a typical generalized polling protocol is analyzed and an efficient algorithm is given that provides a group division minimizing the expected cost per resource location operation.