Group communication in partitionable distributed systems

Abstract

We give a formal specification and an implementation for a partitionable group communication service in asynchronous distributed systems. Our specification is motivated by the requirements for building "partition- aware" applications that can continue operating without blocking in multiple concurrent partitions and reconfigure themselves dynamically when partitions merge. The specified service guarantees live-ness and excludes trivial solutions; it constitutes a useful basis for building realistic partition-aware applications; and it is implementable in practical asynchronous distributed systems where certain stability conditions hold. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2000.