Uniform reliable multicast in a virtually synchronous environment

Abstract

The authors present the definition of and solution to the uniform reliable multicast problem in the virtually synchronous environment defined by the Isis system. A uniform reliable multicast of a message m has the property that if m has been received by any destination process (faulty or not), then m is received by all processes that reach a decision. Uniform reliable multicast provides a solution to the distributed commit problem. Two multicast primitives are defined in the virtually synchronous model: reliable multicast (called view-atomic) and uniform reliable multicast (called uniform view-atomic). The view-atomic multicast is used to implement the uniform view-atomic primitive. As view-atomicity is based on the concept of process group membership, a connection is established between the process group membership and the distributed commit problems.<>