Hybrid Dissemination: Adding Determinism to Probabilistic Multicasting in Large-Scale P2P Systems

Abstract. Epidemic protocols have demonstrated remarkable scalability and robustness in disseminating information on internet-scale, dynamic P2P systems. However, popular instances of such protocols suffer from a number of significant drawbacks, such as increased message overhead in push-based systems, or low dissemination speed in pull-based ones. In this paper we study push-based epidemic dissemination algorithms, in terms of hit ratio, communication overhead, dissemination speed, and resilience to failures and node churn. We devise a hybrid push-based dissemination algorithm, combining probabilistic with deterministic properties, which limits message overhead to an order of magnitude lower than that of the purely probabilistic dissemination model, while retaining strong probabilistic guarantees for complete dissemination of messages. Our extensive experimentation shows that our proposed algorithm outperforms that model both in static and dynamic network scenarios, as well as in the face of large-scale catastrophic failures. Moreover, the proposed algorithm distributes the dissemination load uniformly on all participating nodes. Keywords: Epidemic/Gossip protocols, Information Dissemination, Peer-to-Peer

Implementing the weakest failure detector for solving consensus

The concept of unreliable failure detector was introduced by Chandra and Toueg as a mechanism that provides information about process failures. This mechanism has been used to solve several agreement problems, such as the consensus problem. In this paper, algorithms that implement failure detectors in partially synchronous systems are presented. First two simple algorithms of the weakest class to solve the consensus problem, namely the Eventually Strong class (⋄S), are presented. While the first algorithm is wait-free, the second algorithm is f-resilient, where f is a known upper bound on the number of faulty processes. Both algorithms guarantee that, eventually, all the correct processes agree permanently on a common correct process, i.e. they also implement a failure detector of the class Omega (Ω). They are also shown to be optimal in terms of the number of communication links used forever. Additionally, a wait-free algorithm that implements a failure detector of the Eventually Perfect class (⋄P) is presented. This algorithm is shown to be optimal in terms of the number of bidirectional links used forever

Solving atomic multicast when groups crash

In this paper, we study the atomic multicast problem, a fundamental abstraction for building faulttolerant systems. In the atomic multicast problem, the system is divided into non-empty and disjoint groups of processes. Multicast messages may be addressed to any subset of groups, each message possibly being multicast to a different subset. Several papers previously studied this problem either in local area networks [3, 9, 20] or wide area networks [13, 21]. However, none of them considered atomic multicast when groups may crash. We present two atomic multicast algorithms that tolerate the crash of groups. The first algorithm tolerates an arbitrary number of failures, is genuine (i.e., to deliver a message m, only addressees of m are involved in the protocol), and uses the perfect failures detector P. We show that among realistic failure detectors, i.e., those that do not predict the future, P is necessary to solve genuine atomic multicast if we do not bound the number of processes that may fail. Thus, P is the weakest realistic failure detector for solving genuine atomic multicast when an arbitrary number of processes may crash. Our second algorithm is non-genuine and less resilient to process failures than the first algorithm but has several advantages: (i) it requires perfect failure detection within groups only, and not across the system, (ii) as we show in the paper it can be modified to rely on unreliable failure detection at the cost of a weaker liveness guarantee, and (iii) it is fast, messages addressed to multiple groups may be delivered within two inter-group message delays only

Distributed Computing

The aim of this international journal is to provide a forum for original and significant contributions in the field of distributed computing. Published papers range from reports on systems that are currently being designed, implemented, and used to "theoretical" papers concerning formal specification, verification, and synthesis of distributed systems. In all cases, acceptance of papers is be based on originality and contribution

Distributed Computing

The aim of this international journal is to provide a forum for original and significant contributions in the field of distributed computing. Published papers range from reports on systems that are currently being designed, implemented, and used to "theoretical" papers concerning formal specification, verification, and synthesis of distributed systems. In all cases, acceptance of papers is be based on originality and contribution

Distributed Computing

The aim of this international journal is to provide a forum for original and significant contributions in the field of distributed computing. Published papers range from reports on systems that are currently being designed, implemented, and used to "theoretical" papers concerning formal specification, verification, and synthesis of distributed systems. In all cases, acceptance of papers is be based on originality and contribution