CSE 223a Winter 2004
Homework 2
Due January 30, 2004


Please submit your answers by 2pm on January 30 via e-mail to marzullo@cs.ucsd.edu. Use as a subject line your name and that the message is a solution to this homework (e.g., Johann Johannsen CSE223a Homework 2 solutions).
  1. Using the round-based protocol for solving reliable broadcast for crash failures as a guide, give a protocol for uniform reliable broadcast for receive omission failures. Do not use digital signatures. Be sure to prove your protocol correct. Your proof need not be formal, but it should be a valid argument.
  1. The following is written in Fred B. Schneider's State Machine Approach paper:
      ... If processors experience only failstop failures, then an ensemble containing t + 1 replicas suffices, and the output of the ensemble can be the output produced by any of its members.

    Argue that for this statement to be true, a uniform failstop agreement protocol is needed to disseminate the commands to the state machine. If (nonuniform) failstop agreement is used instead, what should the output of the ensemble be as a function of the outputs of the members? The points you receive will depend on the degree of repliation you require; having n closer to t is better.