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Granular Synchrony

Authors Neil Giridharan , Ittai Abraham , Natacha Crooks , Kartik Nayak , Ling Ren

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ACM Subject Classification
  • Theory of computation → Distributed algorithms
Keywords
  • Timing model
  • synchrony
  • asynchrony
  • consensus
  • blockchain
  • fault tolerance

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Abstract

Today’s mainstream network timing models for distributed computing are synchrony, partial synchrony, and asynchrony. These models are coarse-grained and often make either too strong or too weak assumptions about the network. This paper introduces a new timing model called granular synchrony that models the network as a mixture of synchronous, partially synchronous, and asynchronous communication links. The new model is not only theoretically interesting but also more representative of real-world networks. It also serves as a unifying framework where current mainstream models are its special cases. We present necessary and sufficient conditions for solving crash and Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus in granular synchrony. Interestingly, consensus among n parties can be achieved against f ≥ n/2 crash faults or f ≥ n/3 Byzantine faults without resorting to full synchrony.

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Neil Giridharan, Ittai Abraham, Natacha Crooks, Kartik Nayak, and Ling Ren. Granular Synchrony. In 38th International Symposium on Distributed Computing (DISC 2024). Leibniz International Proceedings in Informatics (LIPIcs), Volume 319, pp. 30:1-30:22, Schloss Dagstuhl – Leibniz-Zentrum für Informatik (2024) https://doi.org/10.4230/LIPIcs.DISC.2024.30

Author Details

Neil Giridharan
  • Unversity of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
Ittai Abraham
  • Intel Labs, Petah Tikva, Israel
Natacha Crooks
  • Unversity of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
Kartik Nayak
  • Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
Ling Ren
  • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL, USA

Funding

  • Ren, Ling: National Science Foundation award #2143058.

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