CATS: linearizability and partition tolerance in scalable and self-organizing key-value stores

Distributed key-value stores provide scalable, fault-tolerant, and self-organizing storage services, but fall short of guaranteeing linearizable consistency in partially synchronous, lossy, partitionable, and dynamic networks, when data is distributed and replicated automatically by the principle of consistent hashing. This paper introduces consistent quorums as a solution for achieving atomic consistency. We present the design and implementation of CATS, a distributed key-value store which uses consistent quorums to guarantee linearizability and partition tolerance in such adverse and dynamic network conditions. CATS is scalable, elastic, and self-organizing; key properties for modern cloud storage middleware. Our system shows that consistency can be achieved with practical performance and modest throughput overhead (5%) for read-intensive workloads

Asynchronous Reconfiguration with Byzantine Failures

Replicated services are inherently vulnerable to failures and security breaches. In a long-running system, it is, therefore, indispensable to maintain a reconfiguration mechanism that would replace faulty replicas with correct ones. An important challenge is to enable reconfiguration without affecting the availability and consistency of the replicated data: the clients should be able to get correct service even when the set of service replicas is being updated. In this paper, we address the problem of reconfiguration in the presence of Byzantine failures: faulty replicas or clients may arbitrarily deviate from their expected behavior. We describe a generic technique for building asynchronous and Byzantine fault-tolerant reconfigurable objects: clients can manipulate the object data and issue reconfiguration calls without reaching consensus on the current configuration. With the help of forward-secure digital signatures, our solution makes sure that superseded and possibly compromised configurations are harmless, that slow clients cannot be fooled into reading stale data, and that Byzantine clients cannot cause a denial of service by flooding the system with reconfiguration requests. Our approach is modular and based on dynamic lattice agreement abstraction, and we discuss how to extend it to enable Byzantine fault-tolerant implementations of a large class of reconfigurable replicated services

Blockchain Enabled Platforms for the Internet of Things

The Blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT) have gained a lot of attention in the last few years, since both technologies enable the possibility of creating a more connected and independent world. This combination enables the design of computing systems and cyber-physical environments without the need of centralized trusted entities, giving users the freedom and control of their operations, in a decentralized ledger model. By using storing and logging mechanisms supported by the Blockchain, data is immutable and independently audited, guaranteeing that it is neither modified nor deleted. At the same time, applications can benefit from the reliability and fault-tolerance assumptions provided by the Blockchain in supporting transactions between users and involved devices. In this thesis, it was studied and proposed a generic solution for a Blockchain-enabled IoT software architecture. The proposed solution enables the advantages of using decentralized logging and ledgering, without the interference of central authorities, inherently supported by the base Blockchain reliability, availability and security foundations. These capabilities are envisaged as key-benefits for a new generation of clean-slate approaches for IoT applications with the required scalability criteria. The research conducted in the dissertation work, studied the base software foundations, relevant components and implementation options that enable the identified advantages of using Blockchain components and services, to leverage more scalable and trustable IoT platforms. Our proposed solution aims to provide an architecture that contributes to a more appropriate design for secure and reliable IoT systems. In this trend we propose a better use of edge-based support for local-enabled processing environments supporting IoT devices and users’ interactions, with operations intermediated by proximity hubs acting as gateways to the Blockchain, where the operations are regulated and controlled by verifiable smart-contracts involving data and transactions

Scaling Private Collaborated Consortium Blockchains Using State Machine Replication Over Random Graphs

Blockchain technology has redefined the way the software industry\u27s core mechanisms operate. With recent generations of improvement observed in blockchain, the industry is surging ahead towards replacing the existing computing paradigms with consortium blockchain-enabled solutions. For this, there is much research observed which aims to make blockchain technology’s performance at par with existing systems. Most of the research involves the optimization of the consensus algorithms that govern the system. One of the major aspects of upcoming iterations in blockchain technology is making individual consortium blockchains collaborate with other consortium blockchains to validate operations on a common set of data shared among the systems. The traditional approach involves requiring all the organizations to run the consensus and validate the change. This approach is computationally expensive and reduces the modularity of the system. Also, the optimized consensus algorithms have their specific requirements and assumptions which if extended to all the organizations leads to a cluttered system with high magnitudes of dependencies.This thesis proposes an architecture that leverages the use of state machine replication extended to all the nodes of different organizations with seamless updates over a random graph network without involving all the nodes participating in the consensus. This also enables organizations to run their respective consensus algorithms depending on their requirements. This approach guarantees the finality of consistent data updates with reduced computations with high magnitudes of scalability and flexibility

Byzantine fault-tolerant agreement protocols for wireless Ad hoc networks

Tese de doutoramento, Informática (Ciências da Computação), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2010.The thesis investigates the problem of fault- and intrusion-tolerant consensus in resource-constrained wireless ad hoc networks. This is a fundamental problem in distributed computing because it abstracts the need to coordinate activities among various nodes. It has been shown to be a building block for several other important distributed computing problems like state-machine replication and atomic broadcast. The thesis begins by making a thorough performance assessment of existing intrusion-tolerant consensus protocols, which shows that the performance bottlenecks of current solutions are in part related to their system modeling assumptions. Based on these results, the communication failure model is identified as a model that simultaneously captures the reality of wireless ad hoc networks and allows the design of efficient protocols. Unfortunately, the model is subject to an impossibility result stating that there is no deterministic algorithm that allows n nodes to reach agreement if more than n2 omission transmission failures can occur in a communication step. This result is valid even under strict timing assumptions (i.e., a synchronous system). The thesis applies randomization techniques in increasingly weaker variants of this model, until an efficient intrusion-tolerant consensus protocol is achieved. The first variant simplifies the problem by restricting the number of nodes that may be at the source of a transmission failure at each communication step. An algorithm is designed that tolerates f dynamic nodes at the source of faulty transmissions in a system with a total of n 3f + 1 nodes. The second variant imposes no restrictions on the pattern of transmission failures. The proposed algorithm effectively circumvents the Santoro- Widmayer impossibility result for the first time. It allows k out of n nodes to decide despite dn 2 e(nk)+k2 omission failures per communication step. This algorithm also has the interesting property of guaranteeing safety during arbitrary periods of unrestricted message loss. The final variant shares the same properties of the previous one, but relaxes the model in the sense that the system is asynchronous and that a static subset of nodes may be malicious. The obtained algorithm, called Turquois, admits f < n 3 malicious nodes, and ensures progress in communication steps where dnf 2 e(n k f) + k 2. The algorithm is subject to a comparative performance evaluation against other intrusiontolerant protocols. The results show that, as the system scales, Turquois outperforms the other protocols by more than an order of magnitude.Esta tese investiga o problema do consenso tolerante a faltas acidentais e maliciosas em redes ad hoc sem fios. Trata-se de um problema fundamental que captura a essência da coordenação em actividades envolvendo vários nós de um sistema, sendo um bloco construtor de outros importantes problemas dos sistemas distribuídos como a replicação de máquina de estados ou a difusão atómica. A tese começa por efectuar uma avaliação de desempenho a protocolos tolerantes a intrusões já existentes na literatura. Os resultados mostram que as limitações de desempenho das soluções existentes estão em parte relacionadas com o seu modelo de sistema. Baseado nestes resultados, é identificado o modelo de falhas de comunicação como um modelo que simultaneamente permite capturar o ambiente das redes ad hoc sem fios e projectar protocolos eficientes. Todavia, o modelo é restrito por um resultado de impossibilidade que afirma não existir algoritmo algum que permita a n nós chegaram a acordo num sistema que admita mais do que n2 transmissões omissas num dado passo de comunicação. Este resultado é válido mesmo sob fortes hipóteses temporais (i.e., em sistemas síncronos) A tese aplica técnicas de aleatoriedade em variantes progressivamente mais fracas do modelo até ser alcançado um protocolo eficiente e tolerante a intrusões. A primeira variante do modelo, de forma a simplificar o problema, restringe o número de nós que estão na origem de transmissões faltosas. É apresentado um algoritmo que tolera f nós dinâmicos na origem de transmissões faltosas em sistemas com um total de n 3f + 1 nós. A segunda variante do modelo não impõe quaisquer restrições no padrão de transmissões faltosas. É apresentado um algoritmo que contorna efectivamente o resultado de impossibilidade Santoro-Widmayer pela primeira vez e que permite a k de n nós efectuarem progresso nos passos de comunicação em que o número de transmissões omissas seja dn 2 e(n k) + k 2. O algoritmo possui ainda a interessante propriedade de tolerar períodos arbitrários em que o número de transmissões omissas seja superior a . A última variante do modelo partilha das mesmas características da variante anterior, mas com pressupostos mais fracos sobre o sistema. Em particular, assume-se que o sistema é assíncrono e que um subconjunto estático dos nós pode ser malicioso. O algoritmo apresentado, denominado Turquois, admite f < n 3 nós maliciosos e assegura progresso nos passos de comunicação em que dnf 2 e(n k f) + k 2. O algoritmo é sujeito a uma análise de desempenho comparativa com outros protocolos na literatura. Os resultados demonstram que, à medida que o número de nós no sistema aumenta, o desempenho do protocolo Turquois ultrapassa os restantes em mais do que uma ordem de magnitude.FC