What is the concept of mutual exclusion in distributed computing?

What is the concept of mutual exclusion in distributed computing?

Mutual exclusion in distributed computing refers to the concept of ensuring that only one process or thread can access a shared resource or critical section at a time. It is necessary to prevent concurrent access and potential conflicts that may arise when multiple processes attempt to modify the same resource simultaneously. Various synchronization techniques, such as locks, semaphores, or atomic operations, are employed to implement mutual exclusion and guarantee that only one process can execute the critical section at any given time. This ensures data consistency and prevents race conditions in distributed systems.