Leader Election Algorithm Using Heap Structure

Several distributed algorithms require that there be a coordinator process in the entire system. Since all other processes in the system have to interact with the coordinator, they all must agree on who the coordinator is. Furthermore, if the coordinator process fails due to the failure of the site on which it is located, a new coordinator process must be elected to take up the job of the failed coordinator. Election algorithms are meant for electing a coordinator among currently running processes. This paper deals with the distributed leader election algorithm for a set of processes connected by a tree network. In this paper, we propose a linear time algorithm for leader election using heap structure and describe it in details.