Relays: A New Approach for the Finite Departure Problem in Overlay Networks

TL;DR

This paper introduces a relay-based interconnection model for overlay networks that enables solving the Finite Departure Problem without oracles, ensuring safe node departure and network connectivity preservation.

Contribution

It proposes a universal relay model for overlay networks, allowing transformation of topologies and enabling self-stabilizing solutions to the Finite Departure Problem without oracles.

Findings

Relay model is universal for weakly-connected topologies.

Self-stabilizing relay layer implementation is possible.

Protocols can recover while serving requests.

Abstract

A fundamental problem for overlay networks is to safely exclude leaving nodes, i.e., the nodes requesting to leave the overlay network are excluded from it without affecting its connectivity. To rigorously study self-tabilizing solutions to this problem, the Finite Departure Problem (FDP) has been proposed [12]. In the FDP we are given a network of processes in an arbitrary state, and the goal is to eventually arrive at (and stay in) a state in which all leaving processes irrevocably decided to leave the system while for all weakly-connected components in the initial overlay network, all staying processes in that component will still form a weakly connected component. In the standard interconnection model, the FDP is known to be unsolvable by local control protocols, so oracles have been investigated that allow the problem to be solved [12]. To avoid the use of oracles, we introduce a new interconnection model based on relays. Despite the relay model appearing to be rather restrictive, we show that it is universal, i.e., it is possible to transform any weakly-connected topology into any other weakly-connected topology, which is important for being a useful interconnection model for overlay networks. Apart from this, our model allows processes to grant and revoke access rights, which is why we believe it to be of interest beyond the scope of this paper. We show how to implement the relay layer in a self-stabilizing way and identify properties protocols need to satisfy so that the relay layer can recover while serving protocol requests.