  We describe an efficient and fault-tolerant algorithm for distributed cyclic
garbage collection. The algorithm imposes few requirements on the local
machines and allows for flexibility in the choice of local collector and
distributed acyclic garbage collector to use with it. We have emphasized
reducing the number and size of network messages without sacrificing the
promptness of collection throughout the algorithm. Our proposed collector is a
variant of back tracing to avoid extensive synchronization between machines. We
have added an explicit forward tracing stage to the standard back tracing stage
and designed a tuned heuristic to reduce the total amount of work done by the
collector. Of particular note is the development of fault-tolerant cooperation
between traces and a heuristic that aggressively reduces the set of suspect
objects.

Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing