Token-based atomic broadcast using unreliable failure detectors

Abstract

Many atomic broadcast algorithms have been published in the last twenty years. Token-based algorithms represent a large class of these algorithms. Interestingly, all the token-based atomic broadcast algorithms rely on a group membership service, i.e., none of them uses unreliable failure detectors directly. The paper presents the first token-based atomic broadcast algorithm that uses an unreliable failure detector - the new failure detector denoted by /spl Rscr/ - instead of a group membership service. The failure detector /spl Rscr/ is compared with <>V and <>S. In order to make it easier to understand the atomic broadcast algorithm, the paper derives the atomic broadcast algorithm from a token-based consensus algorithm that also uses the failure detector /spl Rscr/.