A Loosely Coupled Distributed System for Reliably Storing Data

Abstract

An algorithm for storing information redundantly on the nodes of a broadcast network is proposed. A voting technique is used to increase reliability. Since multiple votes are cast only when copies of a data item disagree, the algorithm has the property that communication overhead is minimal. In addition, nodes storing erroneous copies are automatically resynchronized. A Markov analysis is performed which relates parameters of the algorithm to the mean time to failure.