The concept of time in distributed systems is used to order events.

The
assumption is that the execution of a process is characterised by a
sequence of events. An event can be the execution at one instruction or of
one procedure or sending a message or receiving a message. Under some
condition it is possible to ascertain the order of the events logical clocks
try to catch this.

Logical clocks :

The happened before relation ( →→ ) is defined as follows :

A→BA→B if A & B are within the same process & A occured before B.
A→BA→B if A is an event at sending messages in one process end B is the
event of receiving M in another process.
A→BA→B and B→CB→C then A→CA→C
Event A causally affects event B if A→BA→B distinct events A & B are ( A
|| B) if we do not have A→BA→B or B→AB→A
Example: