Solving k-Set Agreement Using Failure Detectors in Unknown Dynamic Networks

Abstract

The failure detector abstraction has been used to solve agreement problems in asynchronous systems prone to crash failures, but so far it has mostly been used in static and complete networks. This paper aims to adapt existing failure detectors in order to solve agreement problems in unknown, dynamic systems. We are specifically interested in the k-set agreement problem. The problem of k-set agreement is a generalization of consensus where processes can decide up to k different values. Although some solutions to this problem have been proposed in dynamic networks, they rely on communication synchrony or make strong assumptions on the number of process failures. In this paper we consider unknown dynamic systems modeled using the formalism of Time-Varying Graphs, and extend the definition of the existing $\Pi \Sigma _{x,y}$ failure detector to obtain the $\Pi \Sigma _{\bot, x,y}$ failure detector, which is sufficient to solve k-set agreement in our model. We then provide an implementation of this new failure detector using connectivity and message pattern assumptions. Finally, we present an algorithm using $\Pi \Sigma _{\bot, x,y}$ to solve k-set agreement.