Better Sooner Rather Than Later

Anaïs Durand, Michel Raynal, Gadi Taubenfeld

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

This article unifies and generalizes fundamental results related to n-process asynchronous crash-prone distributed computing. More precisely, it proves that for every 0≤k≤n, assuming that process failures occur only before the number of participating processes bypasses a predefined threshold that equals n-k (a participating process is a process that has executed at least one statement of its code), an asynchronous algorithm exists that solves consensus for n processes in the presence of f crash failures if and only iff≤k. In a very simple and interesting way, the “extreme” case k=0 boils down to the celebrated FLP impossibility result (1985, 1987). Moreover, the second extreme case, namely k=n, captures the celebrated mutual exclusion result by E.W. Dijkstra (1965) that states that mutual exclusion can be solved for n processes in an asynchronous read/write shared memory system where any number of processes may crash (but only) before starting to participate in the algorithm (that is, participation is not required, but once a process starts participating it may not fail). More generally, the possibility/impossibility stated above demonstrates that more failures can be tolerated when they occur earlier in the computation (hence the title).

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationStructural Information and Communication Complexity - 31st International Colloquium, SIROCCO 2024, Proceedings
EditorsYuval Emek
PublisherSpringer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
Pages226-237
Number of pages12
ISBN (Print)9783031606021
DOIs
StatePublished - 2024
Externally publishedYes
Event31st International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity, SIROCCO 2024 - Vietri sul Mare, Italy
Duration: 27 May 202429 May 2024

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume14662 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference31st International Colloquium on Structural Information and Communication Complexity, SIROCCO 2024
Country/TerritoryItaly
CityVietri sul Mare
Period27/05/2429/05/24

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2024.

Keywords

  • Adopt/commit
  • Asynchronous read/write system
  • Concurrency
  • Consensus
  • Contention
  • Mutual exclusion
  • Process crash
  • Process participation
  • Simplicity
  • Time-constrained crash failure

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