REFIT

Resource-Efficient Fault and Intrusion Tolerance

(Third Party Funds Single)

Project leader: Tobias Distler
Project members: Tobias Distler, Wolfgang Schröder-Preikschat, Michael Eischer, Laura Lawniczak, Christopher Eibel, Klaus Stengel
Start date: 1. October 2009
Acronym: REFIT
Funding source: DFG-Einzelförderung / Sachbeihilfe (EIN-SBH)
URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Research/REFIT/

Abstract:

Internet-based services play a central role in today's society. With such services progressively taking over from traditional infrastructures, their complexity steadily increases. On the downside, this leads to more and more faults occurring. As improving software-engineering techniques alone will not do the job, systems have to be prepared to tolerate faults and intrusions.

REFIT investigates how systems can provide fault and intrusion tolerance in a resource-efficient manner. The key technology to achieve this goal is virtualization, as it enables multiple service instances to run in isolation on the same physical host. Server consolidation through virtualization not only saves resources in comparison to traditional replication, but also opens up new possibilities to apply optimizations (e.g., deterministic multi-threading).

Resource efficiency and performance of the REFIT prototype are evaluated using a web-based multi-tier architecture, and the results are compared to non-replicated and traditionally-replicated scenarios. Furthermore, REFIT develops an infrastructure that supports the practical integration and operation of fault and intrusion-tolerant services; for example, in the context of cloud computing.

Publications:

• Lawniczak L., Distler T.:
  Stream-based State Machine Replication
  In: Proceedings of the 17th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC '21) 2021
• Eischer M., Distler T.:
  Resilient Cloud-based Replication with Low Latency
  21st International Middleware Conference, Middleware 2020 (, 7. December 2020 - 11. December 2020)
  In: Middleware 2020 - Proceedings of the 2020 21st International Middleware Conference 2020
  DOI: 10.1145/3423211.3425689
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2020/eischer_20_middleware.pdf
• Eischer M., Straßner B., Distler T.:
  Low-Latency Geo-Replicated State Machines with Guaranteed Writes
  7th Workshop on Principles and Practice of Consistency for Distributed Data, PaPoC 2020 (Heraklion, 27. April 2020 - 27. April 2020)
  In: Proceedings of the 7th Workshop on Principles and Practice of Consistency for Distributed Data, PaPoC 2020 2020
  DOI: 10.1145/3380787.3393686
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2020/eischer_20_papoc.pdf
• Eischer M., Büttner M., Distler T.:
  Deterministic Fuzzy Checkpoints
  International Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS '19) (Lyon, 1. October 2019 - 4. October 2019)
  In: Proceedings of the 38th International Symposium on Reliable Distributed Systems (SRDS '19) 2019
  DOI: 10.1109/SRDS47363.2019.00026
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2019/eischer_19_srds.pdf
• Deyerl C., Distler T.:
  In Search of a Scalable Raft-based Replication Architecture
  6th Workshop on Principles and Practice of Consistency for Distributed Data, PaPoC 2019 (Dresden, 25. March 2019)
  In: Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Principles and Practice of Consistency for Distributed Data, PaPoC 2019 2019
  DOI: 10.1145/3301419.3323968
• Eischer M., Distler T.:
  Scalable Byzantine Fault-tolerant State-Machine Replication on Heterogeneous Servers
  In: Computing (2018), p. 1-22
  ISSN: 0010-485X
  DOI: 10.1007/s00607-018-0652-3
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2018/eischer_18_computing.pdf
• Li B., Weichbrodt N., Behl J., Aublin PL., Distler T., Kapitza R.:
  Troxy: Transparent Access to Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Systems
  48th International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN '18) (Luxembourg City, Luxembourg, 25. June 2018 - 28. June 2018)
  In: Proceedings of the 48th International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN '18) 2018
  DOI: 10.1109/DSN.2018.00019
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2018/li_18_dsn.pdf
• Eischer M., Distler T.:
  Latency-Aware Leader Selection for Geo-Replicated Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Systems
  1st Workshop on Byzantine Consensus and Resilient Blockchains (BCRB '18) (Luxembourg City, 25. June 2018 - 28. June 2018)
  In: Proceedings of the 48th International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W '18) 2018
  DOI: 10.1109/DSN-W.2018.00053
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2018/eischer_18_bcrb.pdf
• Eibel C., Gulden C., Schröder-Preikschat W., Distler T.:
  Strome: Energy-Aware Data-Stream Processing
  Distributed Applications and Interoperable Systems (Madrid, 18. June 2018 - 21. June 2018)
  In: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Distributed Applications and Interoperable Systems (DAIS '18) 2018
  DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-93767-0_4
• Eibel C., Do TN., Meißner R., Distler T.:
  Empya: Saving Energy in the Face of Varying Workloads
  6th International Conference on Cloud Engineering (IC2E '18) (Orlando, USA)
  In: Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Cloud Engineering (IC2E '18) 2018
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2018/eibel_18_ic2e.pdf
• Eibel C., Do TN., Meißner R., Distler T.:
  Empya: An Energy-Aware Middleware Platform for Dynamic Applications
  (2018)
• Eischer M., Distler T.:
  Scalable Byzantine Fault Tolerance on Heterogeneous Servers
  EDCC 2017 (Geneva, 4. September 2017 - 8. September 2017)
  In: Proceedings of the 13th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC '17) 2017
  DOI: 10.1109/EDCC.2017.15
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2017/eischer_17_edcc.pdf
• Schiekofer R., Behl J., Distler T.:
  Agora: A Dependable High-Performance Coordination Service for Multi-Cores
  47th International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN '17) (Denver, USA)
  In: Proceedings of the 47th International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks (DSN '17) 2017
• Behl J., Distler T., Kapitza R.:
  Hybrids on Steroids: SGX-based High Performance BFT
  EuroSys 2017 (Belgrade)
  In: Proceedings of the 12th European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys '17) 2017
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2017/behl_17_eurosys.pdf
• Distler T., Cachin C., Kapitza R.:
  Resource-efficient Byzantine Fault Tolerance
  In: IEEE Transactions on Computers, Washington, DC, USA: IEEE Computer Society, 2016, p. 2807-2819 (IEEE Transactions on Computers, Vol.65(9))
  DOI: 10.1109/TC.2015.2495213
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2015/distler_15_ieeetc.pdf
• Li B., Xu W., Abid MZ., Distler T., Kapitza R.:
  SAREK: Optimistic Parallel Ordering in Byzantine Fault Tolerance
  EDCC 2016 (Gothenburg)
  In: Proceedings of the 12th European Dependable Computing Conference (EDCC '16) 2016
• Behl J., Distler T., Kapitza R.:
  Consensus-Oriented Parallelization: How to Earn Your First Million
  Middleware 2015 (Vancouver)
  In: Proceedings of the 16th Middleware Conference (Middleware '15) 2015
  DOI: 10.1145/2814576.2814800
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2015/behl_15_mw.pdf
• Eibel C., Distler T.:
  Towards Energy-Proportional State-Machine Replication
  14th Workshop on Adaptive and Reflective Middleware (Vancouver)
  In: Proceedings of the 14th Workshop on Adaptive and Reflective Middleware (ARM '15) 2015
  DOI: 10.1145/2834965.2834969
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2015/eibel_15_arm.pdf
• Behl J., Distler T., Kapitza R.:
  Scalable BFT for Multi-Cores: Actor-based Decomposition and Consensus-oriented Parallelization
  HotDep 2014 (Broomfield)
  In: Proceedings of the 10th Workshop on Hot Topics in System Dependability (HotDep '14) 2014
• Kapitza R., Behl J., Cachin C., Distler T., Kuhnle S., Mohammadi SV., Schröder-Preikschat W., Stengel K.:
  CheapBFT: Resource-efficient Byzantine Fault Tolerance
  EuroSys 2012 (Bern, 10. April 2012 - 13. April 2012)
  In: Proceedings of the EuroSys 2012 Conference (EuroSys '12) 2012
  DOI: 10.1145/2168836.2168866
  URL: http://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2012/kapitza_12_eurosys.pdf
• Distler T., Kapitza R.:
  Increasing Performance in Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Systems with On-Demand Replica Consistency
  EuroSys 2011 (Salzburg, 10. April 2011 - 13. April 2011)
  In: Proceedings of the EuroSys 2011 Conference (EuroSys '11) 2011
  DOI: 10.1145/1966445.1966455
  URL: http://eurosys2011.cs.uni-salzburg.at/pdf/eurosys2011-distler.pdf
• Distler T., Kapitza R., Popov I., Reiser H., Schröder-Preikschat W.:
  SPARE: Replicas on Hold
  18th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS '11) (San Diego)
  In: Proceedings of the 18th Network and Distributed System Security Symposium (NDSS '11) 2011
  URL: http://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/ndss/11/pdf/8_1.pdf
• Distler T., Kapitza R., Reiser HP.:
  State Transfer for Hypervisor-Based Proactive Recovery of Heterogeneous Replicated Services
  SICHERHEIT '10 (Berlin, 5. October 2010 - 7. October 2010)
  In: Proceedings of the 5th "Sicherheit, Schutz und Zuverlässigkeit" Conference (SICHERHEIT '10) 2010
  URL: http://www4.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/~distler/publications/distler10state.pdf
• Kapitza R., Schunter M., Cachin C., Stengel K., Distler T.:
  Storyboard: Optimistic Deterministic Multithreading
  6th Workshop on Hot Topics in System Dependability (HotDep '10) (Vancouver, Canada)
  In: Proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Hot Topics in System Dependability (HotDep '10) 2010
  URL: http://www.usenix.org/events/hotdep10/tech/full_papers/Kapitza.pdf
• Distler T., Kapitza R., Reiser HP.:
  Efficient State Transfer for Hypervisor-Based Proactive Recovery
  In: Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on Recent Advances on Intrusion-Tolerant Systems (WRAITS '08) 2008
• Reiser HP., Distler T., Kapitza R.:
  Functional Decomposition and Interactions in Hybrid Intrusion-tolerant Systems
  In: Proceedings of the 3rd Workshop on Middleware-Application Interaction (MAI '09) 2009
• Distler T.:
  Resource-Aware System Software for Replicated Services (Habilitation, 2021)
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2021/distler_21_habilitation.pdf
• Bessani A., Reiser HP., Vukolić M., Distler T.:
  Workshop on Byzantine Consensus and Resilient Blockchains (BCRB '18)
  1st Workshop on Byzantine Consensus and Resilient Blockchains (BCRB '18) (Luxembourg City)
  In: Proceedings of the 48th International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks Workshops (DSN-W '18) 2018
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2018/bessani_18_bcrb.pdf
• Distler T.:
  Ressourceneffiziente Fehler- und Einbruchstoleranz
  Kolloquium zum GI Dissertationspreis 2014 (Dagstuhl)
  In: Ausgezeichnete Informatikdissertationen 2014, Bonn: 2015
  URL: http://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2015/distler_15_gidiss.pdf
• Distler T.:
  Resource-efficient Fault and Intrusion Tolerance (Dissertation, 2014)
  URL: https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-fau/frontdoor/deliver/index/docId/4880/file/TobiasDistlerDissertation.pdf
• Eischer M., Distler T.:
  Egalitarian Byzantine Fault Tolerance
  2021 IEEE 26th Pacific Rim International Symposium on Dependable Computing (PRDC) (Perth, 1. December 2021 - 3. December 2021)
  DOI: 10.1109/PRDC53464.2021.00019
  URL: https://www4.cs.fau.de/Publications/2021/eischer_21_prdc.pdf
• Distler T.:
  Byzantine Fault-Tolerant State-machine Replication from a Systems Perspective
  In: ACM Computing Surveys 54 (2021), Article No.: 24
  ISSN: 0360-0300
  DOI: 10.1145/3436728