Patent ID: 8634419

Claim:
A method of sharing data among a plurality of nodes, comprising: providing each node of the plurality of nodes with a receive partner ID that designates a sender node from among the other nodes of the plurality of nodes from which it receives an acknowledgment of receiving shared data and a send partner ID that designates a receiver node from among the other nodes of the plurality of nodes to which it sends an acknowledgement of receiving shared data; sending shared data from a source node of the plurality of nodes to the other nodes of the plurality of nodes; and at each of the nodes receiving the shared data, sending the acknowledgment of receiving the shared data to the respective designated sender node using the receive partner ID; and, waiting for the acknowledgment of receiving the shared data from the respective designated receiver node using the send partner ID, without regard to which node of the plurality of nodes is the source node, wherein the shared data is not considered to have been received by the node receiving the shared data until a second acknowledgment having the designated receiver node ID is received by the node receiving the shared data and each step of sending shared data or sending the acknowledgement is performed in a time period of the order of a time step.