The Consistency Properties of a Scalable, Concurrent Queue

This paper presents a concurrent FIFO queue. The queue is designed to support high, scalable performance through both partitioning its representation , and the removal of locks. A proof of the consistency properties of the queue operations is developed, based on the Linearizability consistency condition. Linearizability is of interest because of its compositional properties , providing a strong foundation for the construction of reliable concurrent systems. The FIFO queue is proven to be linearizable with high probability and is therefore termed-linearizable. This suprising result demonstrates the importance of verification in the implementation of reliable abstractions. The scalable throughput performance of the queue is demonstrated through a simulation study.

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