Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Modern distributed systems rely on consensus protocols to build a fault-tolerant-core upon which they can build applications. Consensus protocols are correct under a specific failure model, where up to f machines can fail. We argue that this f -threshold failure model oversimplifies the real world and limits potential opportunities to optimize for cost or performance. We argue instead for a probabilistic failure model that captures the complex and nuanced nature of faults observed in practice. Probabilistic consensus protocols can explicitly leverage individual machine failure curves and explore side-stepping traditional bottlenecks such as majority quorum intersection, enabling systems that are more reliable, efficient, cost-effective, and sustainable.
Institutions: University of California, Berkeley, Broadcom (United States)
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4411091740