Wait-free consensus with infinite arrivals

A randomized algorithm is given that solves the wait-free consensus problem for a shared-memory model with infinitely many processes. The algorithm is based on a weak shared coin algorithm that uses weighted voting to achieve a majority outcome with at least constant probability that cannot be disguised even if a strong adversary is allowed to destroy infinitely many votes. The number of operations performed by process i is a polynomial function of i. Additional algorithms are given for solving consensus more efficiently in models with an unknown upper bound b on concurrency or an unknown upper bound n on the number of active processes; under either of these restrictions, it is also shown that the problem can be solved even with infinitely many anonymous processes by prefixing each instance of the shared coin with a naming algorithm that breaks symmetry with high probability. For many of these algorithms, matching lower bounds are proved that show that their per-process work is nearly...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2002
• Where: STOC
• Authors: James Aspnes, Gauri Shah, Jatin Shah
• Keywords: Algorithms, Coin Algorithm, Randomized Algorithm, STOC 2002, Unknown Upper Bound