VMware, Inc.
Byzantine agreement using communications having linear complexity

Abstract:

The disclosure describes a failure-free execution agreement that includes n=3F+1 parties acting as replicas, and a number of parties acting as clients. One replica is designated as a primary. At most F replicas are presumed Byzantine faulty. The basic agreement protocol proceeds in three rounds: (1) client sends a request to the primary, who sends to all replicas; (2) each replica sends a threshold-part signature on hash to a first collector; (3) the collector combines the threshold-parts into a single signature and sends to all 3F+1 replicas which then commit and send to a second collector. The client proceeds when a signed block of requests arrives from the second collector.