Crash resilient communication in dynamic networks

Abstract

An end-to-end data delivery protocol for dynamic communication networks is presented. The protocol uses bounded sequence numbers and can tolerate both link failures and processor crashes. Previous bounded end-to-end protocols could not tolerate crashes. A reliable data link layer is not assumed; instead the protocol is designed to work on top of the “bare” network, consisting of nodes connected by FIFO non-duplicating links that can lose messages. Our protocol retransmits messages and uses multiple paths, and thus causes messages to be duplicated and reordered. Yet the data items are delivered without omission or duplication and in FIFO fashion.