Agreement Protocols

• Examples
– Agreeing whether to commit or to abort a transaction in a
distributed database management system.
– Agreeing on a common clock value in a distributed system.
• In the absence of failures or faulty processors, values
(that is to be decided) can be exchanged. A vote can
be taken and decision/agreement can be made
based on: majority, minimum vote, mean, etc.
• Presence of failure: processors can fail or misbehave
intentionally. Several rounds of message exchanges
might be needed before agreement can be reached.

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 Types of Agreement Problems
• Byzantine Agreement Problem
– A single value is to be agreed upon.
– Initial value to be proposed by an arbitrary processor: all non-
faulty processors need to agree on that value.
• Consensus Problem
– Every processor has its own initial value.
– All non-faulty processors agree on a common value.
• Interactive Consistency Problem
– Every processor has its own initial value.
– All non-faulty processors agree on aset of common values (or)
a vector.
Above three types are closely related. Byzantine agreement
problem forms the basis of other 2 types. We focus on
Byzantine agreement.

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 Byzantine Agreement Problem
• An arbitrary source processor broadcasts its initial
value to all others.
• If the source processor is faulty, other non-faulty
processor can agree onany common value.
• Faulty processors’ values and agreements do not
matter.
• If faulty processors are in majority, then non-faulty
processors cannot reach an agreement.
• Number of faulty processors, m , cannot exceed:
trunc[(n-1)/3].
• This bound can be relaxed for systems using
authenticated messages.

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 Impossible Scenario
• Consider a system with 3 processors: p0, p1, p2.
• Two possibilities:
– Case 1: p0 (source) is not faulty. p2 is faulty. p1 should agree
upon 1 as the value. Not possible.
– Case 2: p0 is faulty. p1 may agree on 1 and p2 on 0.

Case 1: Case 2:

p0 p2
1 1 1 1
1 0
p1 p2 p1 p0
0 0

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 Lamport’s Algorithm
• Referred to as Oral Message Algorithm: OM(m), m > 0.
• For 3m + 1 or more processors of which m are faulty.
• Recursive Algorithm:
– Algorithm OM(0)
• Source processor sends its value to every processor.
• Each processor uses the value it receives from source. (If no value
received, default value of 0 assumed).
– Algorithm OM(m), m > 0
• Source processor sends its value to every processor.
• For each processor, letvi be the value received by processori
(from the source). Processor i acts as new source. Initiates
OM(m-1). Sends vi to each of othern-2 processors.
• Letvj be the value received byPi fromPj in above step. (If no value
received,vj is assumed to be 0).Pi uses majorityv1,
( v2, ..vn-1 ).

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 Lamport’s Algorithm ...
• Processors are successively divided into smaller
groups in step 2 where OM(m-1) is executed.
• Step 3 is executed during the folding phases of
recursion where amajority function selects the
agreed value (among those received in step 2).
• Note:majority returns 0 if one does not exist.
• Number of messages:
– OM(m) : n- 1 executions of OM(m-1)
– OM(m-1): n-2 executions of OM(m-2)....
– (n-1)(n-2)(n-3)... (n-k) executions of OM(m-k), k = 1,2,3,...,
m+1.
– Message complexity: O(n power m).

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 Lamport’s Algorithm: Example
1
• System with 4 processors: p0, p1, p2, p3. p0 is source, p2 is
faulty.
• Assumption: possible values are only 1 and 0.
• Step 1: p0 initiates the initial value to be 1. (Algorithm OM(1), m
=1).
• Step 2: OM(0). p1 sends 1 to {p2, p3}. p3 sends 1 to {p1,p2}
• p2 (the faulty one) sends 1 to p1 and 0 to p3.
• Step 3: majority function at p1 and p3 is 1, which is the desired
result. (Not bothered about p2, the faulty one).
p0 p0
1 1 1 1
1 1
1 0
p1 p2 p3 p1 p2 p3
1 1
1
1
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 Lamport’s Algorithm: Example
2
• System with 4 processors: p0, p1, p2, p3. p0 is source, and is
faulty.
• Assumption: possible values are only 1 and 0.
• Step 1: p0 initiates the initial value to be 1 for p1 and p3. For p2,
it sends a 0(Algorithm OM(1), m =1).
• Step 2: OM(0). p1 sends 1 to {p2, p3}. p3 sends 1 to {p1,p2}
• p2 sends 0 to p1 and p3.
• Step 3: majority function at p1, p2, p3 is still the same (1), which
is the desired result.
p0
1 1
0
1 0
p1 p2 p3
0 1
1

1
8
 , Algorithm of Dolev et.al.
(Agreement Protocol)
1. [Initiation] HIGH := 2m + 1, LOW := m + 1 and k := 1. Source
broadcasts value, say “ * ”.
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4. [Termination] If k < 2m + 3, return to Step 2; else if 1 is committed,
processors agree on 1; else agree on 0.

NOTES: Initiation Condition : A processor initiates when (1) for k = 2, if

“ * “ received when k = 1, or (2) for k > 2 if |Cj
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