Bizur is a consensus algorithm exposing a key-value interface. It is used by a distributed file-system that scales to 100s of servers, delivering millions of IOPS, both data and metadata, with consistent low-latency. Bizur is aimed for services that require strongly consistent state, but do not require a distributed log; for example, a distributed lock manager or a distributed service locator. By avoiding a distributed log scheme, Bizur outperforms distributed log based consensus algorithms, producing more IOPS and guaranteeing lower latencies during normal operation and especially during failures. Paxos-like algorithms (e.g., Zab and Raft) which are used by existing distributed file-systems, can have artificial contention points due to their dependence on a distributed log. The distributed log is needed when replicating a general service, but when the desired service is key-value based, the contention points created by the distributed log can be avoided. Bizur does exactly that, by reaching consensus independently on independent keys. This independence allows Bizur to handle failures more efficiently and to scale much better than other consensus algorithms, allowing the file-system that utilizes Bizur to scale with it.
Consensus algorithms have attracted a lot of attention in areas requiring high-availability and fault tolerance. Mainly because they provide the ability to replicate a service across multiple servers, in a way that allows the service to continue working when some of the servers fail. This scheme of using consensus to achieve a replicated service is called state machine replication'' (SMR) @cite_17 .
@cite_17
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There are currently two approaches to providing Byzantine-fault-tolerant state machine replication: a replica-based approach, e.g., BFT, that uses communication between replicas to agree on a proposed ordering of requests, and a quorum-based approach, such as Q U, in which clients contact replicas directly to optimistically execute operations. Both approaches have shortcomings: the quadratic cost of inter-replica communication is un-necessary when there is no contention, and Q U requires a large number of replicas and performs poorly under contention. We present HQ, a hybrid Byzantine-fault-tolerant state machine replication protocol that overcomes these problems. HQ employs a lightweight quorum-based protocol when there is no contention, but uses BFT to resolve contention when it arises. Furthermore, HQ uses only 3f + 1 replicas to tolerate f faults, providing optimal resilience to node failures. We implemented a prototype of HQ, and we compare its performance to BFT and Q U analytically and experimentally. Additionally, in this work we use a new implementation of BFT designed to scale as the number of faults increases. Our results show that both HQ and our new implementation of BFT scale as f increases; additionally our hybrid approach of using BFT to handle contention works well.