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Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing
View on Wikipedia| Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | PODC |
| Discipline | Distributed computing |
| Publication details | |
| Publisher | ACM |
| History | 1982–present |
| Frequency | annual |
The ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC) is an academic conference in the field of distributed computing organised annually by the Association for Computing Machinery (special interest groups SIGACT and SIGOPS).[1]
Scope and related conferences
[edit]Work presented at PODC typically studies theoretical aspects of distributed computing, such as the design and analysis of distributed algorithms. The scope of PODC is similar to the scope of International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC),[2] with the main difference being geographical: DISC is usually organized in European locations,[3] while PODC has been traditionally held in North America.[4] The Edsger W. Dijkstra Prize in Distributed Computing is presented alternately at PODC and at DISC.[5][6][7]
Other closely related conferences include ACM Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures (SPAA), which – as the name suggests – puts more emphasis on parallel algorithms than distributed algorithms. PODC and SPAA have been co-located in 1998, 2005, and 2009.
Reputation and selectivity
[edit]PODC is often mentioned to be one of the top conferences in the field of distributed computing.[8][9][10] In the 2007 Australian Ranking of ICT Conferences, PODC was the only conference in the field that received the highest ranking, "A+".[11]
During the recent years 2004–2009, the number of regular papers submitted to PODC has fluctuated between 110 and 224 each year. Of these submissions, 27–40 papers have been accepted for presentation at the conference each year; acceptance rates for regular papers have been between 16% and 31%.[12][13]
History
[edit]PODC was first organised on 18–20 August 1982, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.[14] PODC was part of the Federated Computing Research Conference in 1996, 1999 and 2011.
Between 1982 and 2009, PODC was always held in a North American location – usually in the United States or Canada, and once in Mexico.[4] In 2010, PODC was held in Europe for the first time in its history,[4] and in the same year, its European sister conference DISC was organised in the United States for the first time in its history.[3][15] PODC 2010 took place in Zürich, Switzerland, and DISC 2010 took place in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Since 2000, a review of the PODC conference appears in the year-ending issue of the ACM SIGACT News Distributed Computing Column.[16] The review is usually written by a member of the distributed computing research community.
See also
[edit]- The list of distributed computing conferences contains other academic conferences in distributed computing.
- The list of computer science conferences contains other academic conferences in computer science.
References
[edit]- ^ "ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing". PODC.
- ^ In Roger Wattenhofer's PODC 2007 Statistics Archived 2011-07-06 at the Wayback Machine, DISC is the number 1 conference on the list of other conferences where PODC authors publish their work.
- ^ a b DISC in DBLP.
- ^ a b c PODC in DBLP.
- ^ EATCS web site: Awards: Dijkstra Prize.
- ^ PODC web site: Edsger W. Dijkstra Prize in Distributed Computing.
- ^ DISC web site: Edsger W. Dijkstra Prize in Distributed Computing Archived 2008-06-02 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Nancy Ann Lynch: Distributed Algorithms, Morgan Kaufmann, 1996, ISBN 978-1-55860-348-6. Section 1.4, "Bibliographic notes", mentions the following conferences in this order: PODC, FOCS, STOC, SPAA, WDAG.
- ^ Gerard Tel: Introduction to Distributed Algorithms, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-521-79483-1. Sect. 1.3.3, "Research field", mentions the following conferences in this order: PODC, WDAG/DISC, STOC, FOCS.
- ^ Chryssis Georgiou, Alexander A. Shvartsman: Do-All Computing in Distributed Systems: Cooperation in the Presence of Adversity, Springer, 2007, ISBN 978-0-387-30918-7. Section "Bibliographic notes" in "Preface" mentions the following conferences in this order: PODC, SPAA, STOC, SODA, FOCS, ICDCS, DISC, OPODIS, SIROCCO.
- ^ 2007 Australian Ranking of ICT Conferences Archived 2009-10-02 at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Forewords of PODC proceedings, 2004–2009.
- ^ PODC: Papers Acceptance Statistics.
- ^ Robert L. Probert, Michael J. Fischer, and Nicola Santoro, editors: Proceedings of the First ACM SIGACT-SIGOPS Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing, 1982, ACM Press. ISBN 0-89791-081-8. doi:10.1145/800220
- ^ "DISC 2010: The 24th International Symposium on Distributed Computing". WikiCFP.
- ^ "The ACM SIGACT News Distributed Computing Column". people.csail.mit.edu. Retrieved 17 April 2024.
External links
[edit]Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing
View on GrokipediaOverview
Scope and Focus
The ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC) is an annual conference dedicated to advancing the understanding of the principles underlying distributed computing through theoretical foundations, design, analysis, implementation, and application of distributed systems and networks.[6] Its core mission is to serve as an international forum where researchers explore the fundamental challenges of concurrency, coordination, and reliability in distributed environments, fostering innovations that bridge abstract models with practical insights.[7] PODC's thematic boundaries emphasize theoretical models, including asynchronous systems, fault-tolerant algorithms, and concurrency control, while prioritizing analytical rigor and conceptual depth over hardware engineering or purely empirical systems implementations.[8] This focus highlights impossibility results, lower bounds, and formal modeling techniques—such as state machine frameworks—to delineate the limits and capabilities of distributed protocols, distinguishing PODC from more applied venues in the field.[8][9] From its inception in the early 1980s, PODC aimed to cultivate research on distributed systems principles in response to the surging interest in parallel and networked computing during that era, providing a dedicated space for theorists and systems researchers to tackle shared challenges.[8] The conference has spotlighted foundational concepts, such as the trade-offs in the CAP theorem—addressing consistency, availability, and partition tolerance—which Eric Brewer introduced in his PODC 2000 keynote, influencing subsequent designs for robust distributed databases.[10] Consensus protocols like Paxos, originally proposed by Leslie Lamport for achieving agreement in unreliable networks, have also been prominently refined and analyzed at PODC, exemplifying the venue's emphasis on fault-tolerant coordination.Organization and Sponsorship
The Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC) is sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) through its Special Interest Groups on Algorithms and Computation Theory (SIGACT) and Operating Systems (SIGOPS).[11] The proceedings of the conference are published in the ACM Digital Library, ensuring wide accessibility to accepted papers and announcements.[12] PODC's organizational structure is overseen by an annual Steering Committee (SC) composed of seven members: the Chair (serving a three-year term), the Troika (the current and next two Program Committee Chairs), the General Chair (one-year term), the Treasurer (one-year term), and a Member At-Large (two-year term).[13] The SC provides leadership to the PODC community, makes key decisions by majority vote, and maintains ties with ACM and related conferences. Program chairs, selected through a rotating process managed by the Troika, are responsible for ensuring technical quality by forming the Program Committee, issuing the call for papers, and overseeing special journal issues. For each edition, local organizing committees, led by one or more Organizing Chairs selected by the SC with community input, handle venue arrangements, registrations, and on-site logistics.[13] The submission and review process follows a lightweight double-blind peer review model, where submissions must anonymize author identities to promote fairness.[14] Typical deadlines include abstract submissions in early February and full papers by mid-February, with notifications in late April or early May, aligning with the conference schedule in June or July. Funding is primarily provided by ACM via the Technical Meeting Resource Fund (TMRF), with budgets approved annually; the General Chair additionally secures support from industry sponsors when available.[13] Unlike membership-based organizations, PODC imposes no fees for participation in the community but requires registration for conference attendance.[4] Since around 2010, PODC's organization has evolved from a more U.S.-centric model to emphasize international diversity, particularly in the composition of program committees, which now routinely include experts from multiple continents to reflect the global scope of distributed computing research.[15]History
Founding and Early Years
The Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC) was established in response to the growing need for a theoretical foundation in distributed systems research, driven by advances in networking and parallel computing during the late 1970s. Around 1978, Nancy Lynch at Georgia Tech recognized the practical importance and inherent complexity of distributed computing, advocating for formal models akin to Turing machines to bridge systems engineering and theoretical computer science. This initiative was spearheaded by Lynch and Michael J. Fischer, with Robert Probert proposing a regular conference venue in Canada to foster collaboration among researchers. Sponsored jointly by ACM SIGACT and SIGOPS, PODC aimed to address foundational challenges in distributed algorithms and systems design.[8] The inaugural PODC took place from August 18–20, 1982, in Ottawa, Canada, with Michael J. Fischer serving as program chair and Nicola Santoro handling local arrangements. The conference featured formal proceedings published by ACM, covering early topics such as language constructs for distributed programming, concurrency control in multiversion databases, and dynamic systems termination. Foundational papers emerged on mutual exclusion protocols and leader election algorithms, establishing core principles for coordinating processes in distributed environments without shared memory. Attendance was modest, reflecting the nascent field, but it attracted key figures from both theoretical and systems communities.[1][16][8] Subsequent early editions built on this momentum, maintaining a North American focus. The second PODC occurred in Montreal, Quebec, from August 17–19, 1983, with Nancy Lynch as program chair and Gordon S. Cormack managing local arrangements; it introduced the first invited address by Leslie Lamport on concurrency issues. The third edition was held in Vancouver, British Columbia, from August 27–29, 1984, emphasizing theoretical distributed algorithms like those for anonymous rings and resource allocation. By the late 1980s, participation had grown, with milestones including the 1987 presentation in Vancouver of the I/O automata model by Lynch and Mark Tuttle, which provided a unified framework for specifying and verifying distributed systems. Proceedings from these years continued to highlight seminal work on clock synchronization, consensus, and unique identifiers for processes.[8][17] PODC's early years also saw integration into broader ACM events, participating as part of the Federated Computing Research Conference (FCRC) in 1996 in Philadelphia and 1999 in Atlanta, which facilitated cross-disciplinary interactions among distributed computing, programming languages, and other areas. This period solidified PODC's role in the academic landscape, prioritizing theoretical underpinnings of distributed algorithms amid evolving hardware capabilities.[2]Expansion and Internationalization
Following its early years, the Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC) experienced significant growth in scale during the 2000s and 2010s, reflecting the expanding interest in distributed computing research. Attendance at the conference rose from approximately 90-125 participants in the early 2000s to around 180 registrants in recent editions, with over 100 attendees reported at PODC 2022 alone.[18][19][20] Submissions also increased steadily, reaching 173 in 2019 and 187 in 2020, underscoring the conference's growing appeal to the global research community.[21] A key milestone in PODC's internationalization occurred in 2010 with the first non-North American venue in Zürich, Switzerland, marking a shift from predominantly North American locations in the prior decades.[2] Subsequent editions further diversified geographically, including Madeira, Portugal in 2012; Paris, France in 2014; Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain in 2015; London, England in 2018; Salerno, Italy in 2022; and Nantes, France in 2024.[2] This expansion continued with PODC 2025 in Huatulco, Mexico—the first in Latin America—and PODC 2026 planned for Egham, England.[19][7] To adapt to global challenges, PODC adopted virtual formats for its 2020 and 2021 editions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling continued participation amid travel restrictions.[2] Additionally, PODC 2011 was co-located with the Federated Computing Research Conference (FCRC) in San Jose, California, fostering broader interdisciplinary interactions.[11] The steering committee underwent expansions to enhance international representation, incorporating more members from outside North America. For instance, Andrzej Pelc served as chair from 2010 to 2012, followed by a mix of global leaders, with the current committee (as of 2025) led by Panagiota Fatourou from Greece and including members such as Fabian Kuhn from Germany and Petr Kuznetsov from France.[2][22] This trend reflects PODC's evolution into a truly global forum while maintaining its focus on core distributed computing principles.Topics Covered
Core Areas
The core areas of research in the Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC) encompass foundational theoretical domains that address the design, analysis, and limitations of distributed systems, emphasizing models of computation under constraints like asynchrony and failures.[4] These areas focus on abstract problems solvable through algorithmic techniques, providing enduring frameworks for understanding coordination in decentralized environments without relying on centralized control.[4] Distributed algorithms form a cornerstone, involving the design and complexity analysis of protocols for tasks such as consensus, broadcast, and synchronization in networks of processes.[4] Consensus requires processes to agree on a single value despite concurrent operations, while broadcast ensures a message from one source reaches all others reliably.[23] Synchronization mechanisms, like mutual exclusion, prevent conflicting accesses to shared resources. A seminal result is the Fischer-Lynch-Paterson (FLP) impossibility theorem, which proves that in asynchronous message-passing systems tolerant to even one crash failure, no deterministic consensus algorithm exists that always terminates.[24] Fault tolerance and reliability explore models for handling failures, including crash faults where processes halt arbitrarily and Byzantine faults where they behave maliciously.[4] Crash fault models assume processes either operate correctly or stop, leading to algorithms that use timeouts or heartbeats for detection. Byzantine fault tolerance, as formalized in the Byzantine Generals Problem, requires agreement among loyal processes despite up to one-third faulty ones sending conflicting messages; solutions often involve multi-round voting protocols.[25] Self-stabilization, introduced by Dijkstra, ensures that a system recovers to a legitimate state from any initial configuration after transient faults, without external intervention, by iteratively applying local rules until convergence.[26] Concurrency and shared memory paradigms address atomicity and progress in multiprocessor environments, where processes access a common memory via operations like reads and writes.[4] Atomicity guarantees that operations appear indivisible, while linearizability provides a consistency condition where concurrent operations are serializable as if executed sequentially in real-time order.[27] Wait-free computing ensures that each process completes its operations in a bounded number of steps regardless of others' speeds or failures, often using obstruction-free primitives extended to wait-freedom.[28] Communication networks model interactions via message-passing, analyzing lower bounds on rounds (synchronization steps) and total messages exchanged.[4] In these systems, processes communicate over links with potential delays, leading to bounds like Ω(n) messages for leader election in rings of n processes. Specific examples include the renaming problem, where processes with large unique identifiers select compact names from a smaller namespace; a wait-free solution for k-renaming uses shared registers to assign names atomically.[29]Pseudocode for a simple wait-free renaming step (for illustration; full algorithm requires auxiliary objects):
function rename(id, n): // id is process's input, n is name space size
name = fetch_and_add(counter, 1) mod n // Atomic increment and modulo
if name >= k: // k is contention bound
retry with helper protocol
return name
Pseudocode for a simple wait-free renaming step (for illustration; full algorithm requires auxiliary objects):
function rename(id, n): // id is process's input, n is name space size
name = fetch_and_add(counter, 1) mod n // Atomic increment and modulo
if name >= k: // k is contention bound
retry with helper protocol
return name
Emerging Topics
In recent years, the Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC) has increasingly addressed evolving research frontiers influenced by technological advances, particularly from the 2010s onward, expanding beyond traditional theoretical foundations to incorporate practical applications in large-scale systems. These emerging topics reflect the integration of distributed computing principles with domains such as artificial intelligence, decentralized finance, natural systems, geo-distributed infrastructures, and quantum technologies, often explored through theoretical models, algorithms, and complexity analyses presented in conference sessions and workshops.[7] Distributed machine learning and big data processing have become prominent at PODC, focusing on algorithms that enable scalable analytics and training across decentralized nodes while preserving privacy and efficiency. For instance, federated learning protocols, which allow models to be trained collaboratively without centralizing raw data, have been analyzed for convergence guarantees and fault tolerance in heterogeneous environments. A key contribution is the exploration of data summarization techniques for graphical models in machine learning tasks, demonstrating how distributed computation can approximate complex optimizations like Bayesian inference with reduced communication overhead. These works tie briefly to core fault tolerance concepts by adapting them to asynchronous, data-intensive settings. Additionally, workshops like the Principles of Distributed Learning, co-located with PODC since 2022, have highlighted challenges in distributed optimization for artificial intelligence, such as gradient aggregation in non-IID data distributions.[4][32][33][34] Blockchain and cryptocurrencies represent another frontier, with PODC emphasizing novel consensus mechanisms that extend classical agreement protocols to handle scalability and security in permissionless networks. Beyond traditional proof-of-work models, research has examined proof-of-stake variants and leader-based Byzantine fault-tolerant protocols, such as HotStuff, which achieve linear communication complexity while tolerating up to one-third faulty nodes in partially synchronous settings. These mechanisms address challenges like chain finality and fork resolution, often modeling blockchains as dynamic graphs where nodes propagate transactions with probabilistic guarantees. Tutorials at PODC, such as "From Classical to Blockchain Consensus" in 2019, have bridged these areas by comparing exact consensus solvability under varying synchrony assumptions. PODC 2025 featured papers on blockchains and distributed ledger technologies, underscoring their growing theoretical significance.[4][35][36][37] Biological and natural distributed systems draw inspiration from decentralized coordination in nature, modeling phenomena like ant colony optimization as fault-tolerant algorithms for collective decision-making. A seminal PODC paper introduced the ant colony house-hunting problem, where scouts use tandem running and quorum sensing to achieve consensus on nest relocation, formalized as a distributed protocol with O(n log n) time complexity in anonymous networks of n agents. This work models biological processes as synchronous or asynchronous message-passing systems, highlighting self-stabilization against environmental perturbations. Co-located workshops on Biological Distributed Algorithms, starting around 2014, have further explored epidemic spreading models akin to rumor propagation algorithms, analyzing thresholds for containment in graph-based populations. Such studies provide conceptual insights into scalable, leaderless coordination without central control.[38][39] Cloud and edge computing at PODC investigate fault models for geo-distributed storage and low-latency protocols, addressing challenges in hybrid infrastructures where data spans edge devices and central clouds. Erasure-coded architectures for consistent storage, as proposed in a 2017 PODC paper, enable atomic reads and writes across failure-prone, geo-replicated systems by layering local redundancy with global parity checks, achieving throughput comparable to replication while reducing storage overhead by up to 50%. These models incorporate churn and partition faults specific to edge environments, such as intermittent connectivity in mobile networks. Workshops like Theory and Practice for Integrated Cloud, Fog, and Edge Computing Paradigms at PODC 2018 have examined low-latency routing protocols that minimize tail latency in wide-area networks through adaptive prefetching and caching strategies.[40][41] Quantum and hybrid distributed systems mark an early but accelerating area in PODC, exploring quantum entanglement to bound communication complexity in network models. The 2018 PODC paper by Le Gall and Magniez introduced quantum algorithms for leader election and spanning tree construction in the CONGEST model, achieving polylogarithmic rounds using quantum walks that leverage superposition for faster exploration than classical counterparts. Recent works, such as even-cycle detection in quantum CONGEST from PODC 2024, demonstrate how entanglement-assisted protocols can reduce message sizes exponentially for certain graph problems, though lower bounds show limitations in fully quantum settings. These explorations, often in hybrid classical-quantum networks, focus on entanglement distribution as a resource for lowering round complexity in multiparty computation. As of 2025 trends, PODC sessions continue to probe quantum extensions of classical models like shared-memory emulation.[42]Related Conferences and Events
Sister Conferences
The International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC) serves as the primary sister conference to PODC, functioning as its annual European counterpart since its founding in 1985 as the biannual Workshop on Distributed Algorithms on Graphs (WDAG), which became annual in 1989 and was renamed DISC in 1998 to encompass a broader scope.[43] Unlike PODC's emphasis on foundational principles underlying distributed computing, DISC extends to the theory, design, analysis, implementation, and application of distributed systems and networks.[7][44] The two conferences alternate in presenting the Edsger W. Dijkstra Prize in Distributed Computing, recognizing outstanding papers in the field.[45] Other key sister conferences include the International Conference on Principles of Distributed Systems (OPODIS), which focuses on state-of-the-art advancements in distributed computing and systems, including real-time and fault-tolerant aspects, and the Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity (SIROCCO), established in 1994 to explore theoretical foundations of communication complexity and structural properties in distributed settings.[46][47] These events overlap with PODC in their theoretical emphasis on distributed algorithms and models, though DISC and OPODIS incorporate more systems-oriented papers on practical implementations, while SIROCCO targets specialized communication-theoretic challenges; their joint communities are evident through shared authors, cross-citations, and collaborative resources like the PODC–DISC online platforms.[48][49] Historically, PODC and DISC have operated as twin events, promoting a unified global research ecosystem in distributed computing through complementary scopes and occasional co-location opportunities.[48][49]Co-located and Affiliated Events
The Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC) frequently co-locates with the ACM Symposium on Parallelism in Algorithms and Architectures (SPAA), enabling joint sessions and shared infrastructure. Notable instances include 1998 in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico; 2005 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; 2009 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada; and 2023 in Orlando, Florida, USA, as part of the broader ACM Federated Computing Research Conference (FCRC), with continued co-location scheduled for 2026 in Egham, UK.[50][51][52][53][54] PODC has also participated as a core component in select editions of the ACM FCRC, a week-long umbrella event gathering multiple computing conferences. This affiliation occurred in 1996 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; 1999 in Atlanta, Georgia; and 2011 in San Jose, California, allowing attendees access to cross-conference programming.[55][56][2] In addition to these major co-locations, PODC hosts affiliated workshops addressing specialized distributed computing topics, often held immediately before or after the main symposium. Examples include the annual Workshop on Advanced Tools, Programming Languages, and Platforms for Implementing and Evaluating Algorithms for Distributed Systems (ApPLIED), which focuses on practical implementation challenges, and dedicated sessions on testing and verification using formal methods and machine verification tools. Student-oriented workshops, such as the Senior-Junior Meeting and MaRIA/MoPS early-career gatherings, provide mentoring opportunities for graduate students and postdocs to interact with established researchers.[57][58][59][60] These arrangements yield practical advantages, including shared keynote addresses and technical sessions that foster collaboration across subfields, lower overall attendance costs through consolidated venues and registration, and enhanced intellectual cross-pollination—for instance, where advances in parallel algorithms from SPAA inform modeling techniques in distributed systems.[61][62] Such events are organized under the auspices of ACM Special Interest Groups like SIGACT and SIGOPS, with potential for expanded affiliations including sister conferences such as DISC.[7]Reputation and Impact
Selectivity and Acceptance Rates
The Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing (PODC) maintains a competitive selection process, with an overall historical acceptance rate of approximately 30% across its editions, based on 781 accepted papers out of 2,628 submissions as of 2025.[63] This rate underscores the conference's rigor in a growing field, where submission volumes during 2004–2009 ranged from 110–224 papers annually, with recent years in the 2020s varying from around 110 to over 180, reflecting sustained interest in distributed computing research.[61][63] Acceptance rates have shown some variation over time but remain low, typically in the mid-20s to low-30s percent range. For instance, PODC 2009 accepted 27 out of 110 submissions (25%).[61] In more recent years, the rates have been as follows:| Year | Submissions | Accepted | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | 151 | 41 | 27% [63] |
| 2023 | 110 | 29 | 26% [64] |
| 2020 | 187 | 47 | 25% [65] |
| 2019 | 173 | 48 | 28% [66] |
