An optimal distributed algorithm for failure-driven leader election in bounded-degree networks

The authors consider the leader election problem in point-to-point network where the number of communication links for each node is bounded. Instead of focusing on electing a leader as an initialization step, this paper emphasizes the election of the leader in a fault-tolerant distributed system where the election is triggered by the failure or the abdication of the current leader; it is assumed that the number of initiators that detect the failure or the abdication and start the election algorithm is bounded. A leader election algorithm is presented. The algorithm is based on a new approach that is sharply different from those of previous works: timestamped multiple-sourced flooding. The worst-case time and communication complexities of the algorithm are both optimal; the former is O(D) and the latter is O(E) equivalent to O(N) in the authors network model