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On the road to the weakest failure detector for k-set agreement in message-passing systems

Authors :
François Bonnet
Michel Raynal
As Scalable As Possible: foundations of large scale dynamic distributed systems (ASAP)
SYSTÈMES LARGE ÉCHELLE (IRISA-D1)
Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systèmes Aléatoires (IRISA)
CentraleSupélec-Télécom Bretagne-Université de Rennes 1 (UR1)
Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES)-Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-École normale supérieure - Rennes (ENS Rennes)-Université de Bretagne Sud (UBS)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - Rennes (INSA Rennes)
Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES)-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-CentraleSupélec-Télécom Bretagne-Université de Rennes 1 (UR1)
Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES)-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systèmes Aléatoires (IRISA)
Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Université de Rennes (UNIV-RENNES)-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Inria Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique
Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST)
Inria Rennes – Bretagne Atlantique
Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-SYSTÈMES LARGE ÉCHELLE (IRISA-D1)
Université de Rennes (UR)-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - Rennes (INSA Rennes)
Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Université de Bretagne Sud (UBS)-École normale supérieure - Rennes (ENS Rennes)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Télécom Bretagne-CentraleSupélec-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Rennes (UR)-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées - Rennes (INSA Rennes)
Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Université de Bretagne Sud (UBS)-École normale supérieure - Rennes (ENS Rennes)-Institut National de Recherche en Informatique et en Automatique (Inria)-Télécom Bretagne-CentraleSupélec-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut de Recherche en Informatique et Systèmes Aléatoires (IRISA)
Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Institut National des Sciences Appliquées (INSA)-Université de Bretagne Sud (UBS)-École normale supérieure - Rennes (ENS Rennes)-Télécom Bretagne-CentraleSupélec-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
Source :
Theoretical Computer Science, Theoretical Computer Science, Elsevier, 2011, 412 (33), pp.4273-4284, Theoretical Computer Science, 2011, 412 (33), pp.4273-4284
Publisher :
Elsevier B.V.

Abstract

In the k -set agreement problem, each process (in a set of n processes) proposes a value and has to decide a proposed value in such a way that at most k different values are decided. While this problem can easily be solved in asynchronous systems prone to t process crashes when k > t , it cannot be solved when k ≤ t . For several years, the failure-detector-based approach has been investigated to circumvent this impossibility. While the weakest failure detector class to solve the k -set agreement problem in read/write shared memory systems has recently been discovered (PODC 2009), the situation is different in message-passing systems where the weakest failure detector classes are known only for the extreme cases k = 1 (consensus) and k = n − 1 (set agreement). This paper presents four contributions whose aim is to help pave the way to discover the weakest failure detector class for k -set agreement in message-passing systems. These contributions are the following. (a) The first is a new failure detector class, denoted Π k , that is such that Π 1 = Σ × Ω (the weakest class for k = 1 ), and Π n − 1 = L (the weakest class for k = n − 1 ). (b) The second is an investigation of the structure of Π k that shows that Π k is the combination of two failure detector classes Σ k (that is new) and Ω k (they generalize the previous “quorums” and “eventual leaders” failure detector classes, respectively). (c) The third contribution concerns Σ k that is shown to be a necessary requirement (as far as information on failure is concerned) to solve the k -set agreement problem in message-passing systems. (d) Finally, the last contribution is a Π n − 1 -based algorithm that solves the ( n − 1 ) -set agreement problem. This algorithm provides us with a new algorithmic insight on the way the ( n − 1 ) -set agreement problem can be solved in asynchronous message-passing systems. It is hoped that these contributions will help discover the weakest failure detector class for k -set agreement in message-passing systems.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
03043975 and 18792294
Issue :
33
Database :
OpenAIRE
Journal :
Theoretical Computer Science
Accession number :
edsair.doi.dedup.....0ea780a7b72777b66f3ec6a8ae8440ae
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tcs.2010.11.007