Unreliable failure detectors with limited scope accuracy and an application to consensus

Abstract

Let the scope oft he accuracy property ofan unreliable failure detector be the minimum number (k) ofpro cesses that may not erroneously suspect a correct process to have crashed. Classical failure detectors implicitly consider a scope equal to n (the total number ofp rocesses). This paper investigates accuracy properties with limited scope, thereby giving rise to the Sk and {white diamond suit} Sk classes off ailure detectors. A reduction protocol transforming any failure detector belonging to Sk (resp. {white diamond suit} Sk) into a failure detector (without limited scope) of the class S (resp. {white diamond suit}S) is given. This reduction protocol requires f