A Virtually Synchronous Group Multicast Algorithm for WANs: Formal Approach

This paper presents a formal design for a novel group communication service targeted for WANs. The service provides Virtual Synchrony semantics. Such semantics facilitate the design of fault tolerant distributed applications. The presented design is more suitable for WANs than previously suggested ones. In particular, it features the first algorithm to achieve Virtual Synchrony semantics in a single communication round. The design also employs a scalable WANoriented architecture: it effectively decouples the main two components of Virtually Synchronous group communication -- group membership and reliable group multicast. The design is carried out formally and rigorously. This paper includes formal specifications of both safety and liveness properties. The algorithm is formally modeled and assertionally verified. Subjects: 68M14 Distributed systems, 68M15 Reliability, testing and fault tolerance, 68W15 Distributed algorithms, 68Q85 Models and methods for concurrent and distributed comp...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2002
• Where: SIAMCOMP
• Authors: Idit Keidar, Roger Khazan
• Keywords: Design, Group Communication, SIAMCOMP 2002, Virtual Synchrony