A theoretical evaluation of peer-to-peer internal clock synchronization

Synchronized clocks are usually considered as a prerequisite for many distributed applications. Existing solutions mainly deal with this problem in static environments with well defined characteristics and limits. The needs of an emergent class of large-scale peer-to-peer applications that have to operate without any assumptions on the surrounding environment have recently revitalized this research area with the proposals of new solutions characterized by self-organization capabilities and strong adaptability to dynamic settings. This paper reports about the properties of a clock synchronization algorithm for large scale applications. The algorithm implements an internal clock synchronization mechanism which combines the gossip-based paradigm with a nature-inspired approach coming from the coupled oscillators phenomenon. Using a theoretical approach, the paper focuses on the convergence properties of the algorithm, characterizing its synchronization speed (decay factor) the final synchronization point and error.