research-article

Transforming worst-case optimal solutions for simultaneous tasks into all-case optimal solutions

Authors:

Maurice P. Herlihy,

Mark R. TuttleAuthors Info & Claims

PODC '11: Proceedings of the 30th annual ACM SIGACT-SIGOPS symposium on Principles of distributed computing

Pages 231 - 238

https://doi.org/10.1145/1993806.1993849

Published: 06 June 2011 Publication History

Abstract

Decision tasks require that nonfaulty processes make decisions based on their input values. Simultaneous decision tasks require that nonfaulty processes decide in the same round. Most decision tasks have known worst-case lower bounds. Most also have known worst-case optimal protocols that halt in the number of rounds given by the worst-case lower bound, and some have early-stopping protocols that can halt earlier than the worst-case lower bound (sometimes in as early as two rounds). We consider what might be called earliest-possible protocols for simultaneous decision tasks. We present a new technique that converts worst-case optimal decision protocols into all-case optimal simultaneous decision protocols: For every behavior of the adversary, the all-case optimal protocol decides as soon as any protocol can decide in a run with the same adversarial behavior. Examples to which this can be applied include set consensus, condition-based consensus, renaming and order-preserving renaming. Some of these tasks can be solved significantly faster than the classical simultaneous consensus task. A byproduct of the analysis is a proof that improving on the worst-case bound for any simultaneous task by even a single round is as hard as reaching simultaneous consensus.

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Cited By

Castañeda AGonczarowski YMoses Y(2022)Unbeatable consensusDistributed Computing10.1007/s00446-021-00417-3Online publication date: 12-Jan-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00446-021-00417-3
Pass RShi E(2018)Thunderella: Blockchains with Optimistic Instant ConfirmationAdvances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 201810.1007/978-3-319-78375-8_1(3-33)Online publication date: 31-Mar-2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78375-8_1
Moses Y(2016)Relating Knowledge and Coordinated Action: The Knowledge of Preconditions PrincipleElectronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science10.4204/EPTCS.215.17215(231-245)Online publication date: 23-Jun-2016
https://doi.org/10.4204/EPTCS.215.17
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Transforming worst-case optimal solutions for simultaneous tasks into all-case optimal solutions
1. Software and its engineering
  1. Software organization and properties
    1. Extra-functional properties
      1. Software fault tolerance
    2. Software system structures
      1. Distributed systems organizing principles
        Organizing principles for web applications

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cover image ACM Conferences

PODC '11: Proceedings of the 30th annual ACM SIGACT-SIGOPS symposium on Principles of distributed computing

June 2011

406 pages

ISBN:9781450307192

DOI:10.1145/1993806

General Chair:
Cyril Gavoille
LaBRI, University of Bordeaux, France
,
Program Chair:
Pierre Fraigniaud
CNRS and University of Paris Diderot, France

Copyright © 2011 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Publication History

Published: 06 June 2011

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PODC '11

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PODC '11: ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing

June 6 - 8, 2011

California, San Jose, USA

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Overall Acceptance Rate 740 of 2,477 submissions, 30%

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Cited By

Castañeda AGonczarowski YMoses Y(2022)Unbeatable consensusDistributed Computing10.1007/s00446-021-00417-3Online publication date: 12-Jan-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00446-021-00417-3
Pass RShi E(2018)Thunderella: Blockchains with Optimistic Instant ConfirmationAdvances in Cryptology – EUROCRYPT 201810.1007/978-3-319-78375-8_1(3-33)Online publication date: 31-Mar-2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78375-8_1
Moses Y(2016)Relating Knowledge and Coordinated Action: The Knowledge of Preconditions PrincipleElectronic Proceedings in Theoretical Computer Science10.4204/EPTCS.215.17215(231-245)Online publication date: 23-Jun-2016
https://doi.org/10.4204/EPTCS.215.17
Castañeda AGonczarowski YMoses YGiakkoupis G(2016)Unbeatable Set Consensus via Topological and Combinatorial ReasoningProceedings of the 2016 ACM Symposium on Principles of Distributed Computing10.1145/2933057.2933120(107-116)Online publication date: 25-Jul-2016
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2933057.2933120
Castañeda AGonczarowski YMoses Y(2014)Unbeatable ConsensusDistributed Computing10.1007/978-3-662-45174-8_7(91-106)Online publication date: 2014
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-45174-8_7
Castañeda AGonczarowski YMoses YFatourou PTaubenfeld G(2013)Brief announcementProceedings of the 2013 ACM symposium on Principles of distributed computing10.1145/2484239.2484280(113-115)Online publication date: 22-Jul-2013
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2484239.2484280

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