Definition (Ping-ponging)
Ping-ponging describes a degenerate state in a distributed system where the system spends more time on transferring the data, rather than processing it.
One particular example is a distributed shared memory where one node acquires a write lock on a page to update a value. Another node might then try to acquire the lock to change a different value but in the same page. The system must then serialize all the data and transfer it between the network. This can get looped repeatedly.