A Reconfigurable System Architecture for Consensus-based Group Communication.
Hans P. Reiser, Udo Bartlang, Franz J. Hauck · 2005
Using distributed consensus algorithms is an established way to implement group communication systems with total message ordering. This paper presents a system architecture focusing on (re-)configurability of such systems. Unlike other systems, ours can be configured to work with different failure models and low-level communication protocols without changing the application. Failure models, protocols, and their run-time parameters (e.g., timeouts) can even be re-configured at run-time without loosing consistency, especially in case of failures. Re-configuration at run-time allows for applications that adapt to access patterns and environment conditions for gaining optimal performance and fault tolerance at the same time. As reconfiguration is transparent to the application logic, it may be done automatically by the system. We also present performance figures of our prototype implementation on the basis of variants of the Paxos algorithm.