Title :
The many faces of consensus in distributed systems
Author :
Turek, John ; Shasha, Dennis
Author_Institution :
IBM Thomas J. Watson Res. Center, Yorktown Heights, NY, USA
fDate :
6/1/1992 12:00:00 AM
Abstract :
Known results regarding consensus among processors are surveyed and related to practice. The ideas embodied in the various proofs are explained. The goal is to give practitioners some sense of the system hardware and software guarantees that are required to achieve a given level of reliability and performance. The survey focuses on two categories of failures: fail-stop failures, which occur when processors fail by stopping; and Byzantine failures, which occur when processors fail by acting maliciously.<>
Keywords :
distributed processing; fault tolerant computing; multiprocessing programs; system recovery; Byzantine failures; consensus; distributed systems; fail-stop failures; reliability; software guarantees; system hardware; Application software; Calendars; Delay; Distributed computing; Electronic mail; Face; Humans; Protocols; Telephony; Workstations;
