A simple Byzantine-fault-tolerant algorithm for a multi-writer regular register

摘要

Distributed storage systems have become popular for handling the enormous amount of data in network-centric systems. A distributed storage system provides client processes with the abstraction of a shared variable that satisfies some consistency and reliability properties. Typically, the properties are ensured through a replication-based implementation. This paper presents an algorithm for a replicated read/write register that can tolerate f Byzantine-faulty servers when there are at least a total of 3f+ 1 replica servers. The targeted consistency condition is weaker than the more frequently supported condition of atomicity, but it is still strong enough to be useful in some important applications. By weakening the consistency condition, the algorithm can support multiple writers more efficiently and more simply than the known multi-writer algorithms for atomic consistency.