Paper Info
Title
A simple and fast asynchronous consensus protocol based on a weak failure detector
Abstract
The Consensus problem is a fundamental paradigm for fault-tolerant asynchronous systems. It abstracts a family of problems known as Agreement (or Coordination) problems. Any solution to consensus can serve as a basic building block for solving such problems (e.g., atomic commitment or atomic broadcast). Solving consensus in an asynchronous system is not a trivial task: it has been proven (1985) by Fischer, Lynch and Paterson that there is no deterministic solution in asynchronous systems which are subject to even a single crash failure. To circumvent this impossibility result, Chandra and Toueg have introduced the concept of unreliable failure detectors (1991), and have studied how these failure detectors can be used to solve consensus in asynchronous systems with crash failures. This paper presents a new consensus protocol that uses a failure detector of the class ♦J. Like previous protocols, it is based on the rotating coordinator paradigm and proceeds in asynchronous rounds. Simplicity and efficiency are the main characteristics of this protocol. From a performance point of view, the protocol is particularly efficient when, whether failures occur or not, the underlying failure detector makes no mistake (a common case in practice). From a design point of view, the protocol is based on the combination of three simple mechanisms: a voting mechanism, a small finite state automaton which manages the behavior of each process, and the possibility for a process to change its mind during a round.
Year
DOI
Venue
1999
10.1007/s004460050067
Distributed computing
Keywords
Field
DocType
asynchronous consensus protocol,crash failures,asynchronous round,fault-tolerant asynchronous system,weak failure detector,fault-tolerance,previous protocol,failure detector,single crash failure,asynchronous system,underlying failure detector,asynchronous distributed systems,unreliable failure detectors,crash failure,consen- sus problem,unreliable failure detector,new consensus protocol,fault tolerant,finite state automaton,atomic broadcast,fault tolerance,consensus problem
Consensus,Asynchronous communication,Atomic broadcast,Asynchronous system,Computer science,Impossibility,Finite-state machine,Fault tolerance,Chandra–Toueg consensus algorithm,Distributed computing
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
12
4
0178-2770
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
56
3.47
15
Authors
2
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Michel Hurfin126629.30
Michel Raynal24078349.46