Reversibility in Massive Concurrent Systems

TL;DR

This paper explores the concept of reversibility in massive concurrent systems, focusing on causally consistent undoing of computation histories, which allows for nondeterministic reversal aligned with independent actions.

Contribution

It introduces a causally consistent approach to reversing computations in concurrent systems, emphasizing nondeterministic undoing aligned with independent actions.

Findings

Reversibility can be achieved in a causally consistent manner.

Undoing in concurrent systems is nondeterministic but causally aligned.

The approach ensures states are reachable through different action orders.

Abstract

Reversing a (forward) computation history means undoing the history. In concurrent systems, undoing the history is not performed in a deterministic way but in a causally consistent fashion, where states that are reached during a backward computation are states that could have been reached during the computation history by just performing independent actions in a different order.