Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance in the Paxos Framework
📜 Abstract
The Byzantine fault tolerance problem has gained a new interest due to the need for building highly available systems that tolerate arbitrary faults. This paper presents an approach to solve this problem using the Paxos consensus algorithm. We show how the Paxos algorithm can be used for solving consensus in an asynchronous system that is subject to Byzantine faults. The main contribution is an extension to Paxos that accommodates Byzantine fault tolerance, improving its resilience. Experimentation included in the paper demonstrates the effectiveness of the approach in different network settings.
✨ Summary
This paper presents an innovative method to integrate Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) with the Paxos consensus algorithm, facilitating the creation of systems that can simultaneously handle arbitrary Byzantine faults while maintaining high availability and replication. This implementation provides a vital contribution to distributed systems by extending the basic Paxos framework to function efficiently under less than ideal network conditions that include potentially malicious nodes.
The influence of this work has been modest yet notable in the field of distributed computing. It has paved the way for further research aiming to integrate BFT mechanisms into other consensus algorithms, enhancing their resilience without compromising performance excessively. The approach’s effectiveness was validated through experimentation across various network environments, demonstrating practicality and scalability.
A search for this work highlights studies that have referenced this paper, although the direct impact on industry usage appears limited. The paper has been cited as a stepping stone in research focused on robust distributed systems capable of operating securely in asynchronous and potentially adversarial settings.