Description: The ‘Global Clock’ is a fundamental theoretical concept in the field of distributed systems, used to synchronize events in an environment where multiple processes or nodes operate independently. In a distributed system, each node may have its own local clock, which can lead to temporal inconsistencies when coordinating actions between them. The Global Clock seeks to establish a common reference framework that allows systems to coordinate effectively, ensuring that events are ordered correctly and that communication between nodes is coherent. This concept is crucial for applications requiring high availability and consistency, such as distributed databases and network file systems. The implementation of a Global Clock may involve algorithms like Lamport’s, which assigns timestamps to events, or the use of specialized hardware like FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) to manage synchronization at the hardware level. The relevance of the Global Clock lies in its ability to facilitate collaboration and communication in complex systems, where latency and desynchronization can affect performance and data integrity.
