Abstract
The Distributed Consensus problem involves n processors each of which holds an initial binary value. At most t processors may be faulty and ignore any protocol (even behaving maliciously), yet it is required that non-faulty processors eventually agree on a common value that was initially held by one of them. The quality of a consensus protocol is measured using the following parameters: the number of processors n, the number of rounds of message exchange r and the total number of bits transmitted B. The known lower bounds are respectively 3t + 1, t + 1 and Ω(nt).
While no known protocol is optimal in all three aspects simultaneously, the protocol presented in this paper takes further steps in this direction: it achieves for the first time asymptotically optimal bit transfer (B = 0(nt)), together with optimal number of processors n and nearly optimal r. Previously existing consensus protocols required B = Ω(n2 t), regardless of the other parameters’ values.
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© 1992 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Berman, P., Garay, J.A., Perry, K.J. (1992). Bit Optimal Distributed Consensus. In: Baeza-Yates, R., Manber, U. (eds) Computer Science. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3422-8_27
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-3422-8_27
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