Challenges And Applications Of Consensus Protocols For Unreliable Networks

Challenges Related to Unreliable Networks

The prime determination of this unit of the paper is to focus on the application of security protocols due to the presence of the miss behaving agents which have a very indifferent behaviour considering consensus network. There were huge complexities due to security reasons in those networks, those networks usually deal with clock synchronisation, motion co-ordination and co-operative estimation. The presence of the misbehaving agents such as malicious agents such as Byzantine and faulty agents which are also known as the non-colluding agents.

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 The security measures also help in detecting those faults in the first place. The prime challenges related to those unreliable networks will be described in details in this paper. The challenges will be described in such a way that it will help the readers of this document to understand the reasons behind those challenges also (Rezaee and Abdollahi 2015). The paper will also focus on the effectiveness of the consensus protocols which are actively used to solve the problems related to those unreliable networks. This paper will provide the readers with an idea about the impact of reliability on an operating system as most of the times the system has some faulty components.

The challenges related to the consensus problems are a major issue in most of the distributed systems these days. Stable results are not obtained from the fault free processors. Dealing with these consensus problems is a must as they are very much influence from the faulty components. The foremost problems related with the unreliable networks are the clock synchronisation problem, agreeing on the value of the replicated sensor, finding the location of the replicated file in the distributed systems and the transaction problems.

Reliability of a system is a very basic issue of every distributed computing systems (Bae, Lim and Ahn 2017). As a huge number of data are processed in the computing systems, there are different applications of consensus in those systems.

The prime applications of consensus protocols for the unreliable networks are as followings:

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Transaction: It is one of the chief purposes of the consensus networks. The database of every system is designed and built in such a way so that it can store and execute different types of data irrespective of its design (Zheng and Wang 2016). So committing or saving the transactions in the database is a very important very important application of consensus in reliable networks.

Leaders: Election of the leaders in a distributed system is the other important application of consensus in unreliable networks. The election of the leaders is initiated after the task is underway. Communications of the networking nodes are very important in every distributed system for the selection of the leaders (Hong et al. 2018). The nodes compare each other specification and identities, the nodes with the highest identity is selected as the leader. All the processors of the unreliable network know who their leader is and the also the features provided by the leader to the nodes.

Applications of Consensus Protocols for Unreliable Networks

State Machine Replication: This one of the most important applications of consensus is the state machine replication. Implementation of a fault tolerance service is attained with the extensive use of the replicating servers. The design replication management protocol can be understood with the help of the state machine replication. The unreliable network having more than one server and operations are the main areas of expertise of this replication approach.

Atomic broadcasts: Most of the distributed computing systems all the correct processes receive a same set of messages with the help of a broadcast known as the atomic broadcast.  The application of the atomic broadcasts does not have any kind of side effect. The validations of the messages which are sent from one location to another are done with the help of the atomic broadcasts (Li, Wang and Li 2017). The atomic broadcast makes sure that if one of the correct participants receives a message then all the participants can receive that message. The integrity of those messages are also maintained with the help of this total order broadcast. The order of the messages is also managed with the help of atomic broadcast in unreliable networks.

The main challenge of the unreliable network is the delivery of the data in the desired locations. The alteration and maintenance of the integrity of the data are the other important challenges of these unreliable networks. Security dilemma is the other type of challenge related to the unreliable networks. The ineffective communication processes considering those messages are the other type of challenges related to the unreliable network (Chou et al. 2018). Increasing number of external threats in the form of hacking is the other type of challenge related to the computer networks.

The consensus protocols are designed and implemented by experienced IT professional in such a way that it is very much reliable to apply them in the unreliable networks. The implementation of the consensus protocols is extremely costly in nature in term of the computing resources and time. The validation of the blocks is done in a more efficient manner with the help of the consulting protocols. The working mechanism of the consensus protocols varies depending upon the block chain which is helpful in validating the blocks. The consensus protocols are found in different categories and this method is very much efficient and effective for security purposes in the unreliable computer networks.

The consensus protocols are the most important aspect of block chain technology.  The different networking systems which are connected in a distributed network are secured from the different threats with the help of the consensus protocols. The nodes of the network can agree with the help of the same state of a block chain making the network a self-auditing echo system. The consensus protocols allow the block chain to be updated so that it can deal with all the updates threats coming from the crackers as well as the hackers. Every participant associated with the networking system is secured with the help of the consensus protocols. If there are issues in any of the part of an unreliable network block chain system which designed in such a way that the rest of the system is unaffected by it. The network reliability issues are the biggest challenge of every business organisations. Reliable networking systems are a must for every organisation to provide the desired products and services.

Conclusion

There are different techniques by which the challenges related to the unreliable networks can be solved purposefully such as the internet content filters, proxy servers and firewalls. The security of the data is often compromised with the help of these challenges. On top of that, the hackers and the crackers play a huge role in these unreliable networks in spite of strong data encryption technique. The extensive development in the field of networking technology has led to the increase of connectivity and security issues also. The legal liabilities are the other type of challenge related to the network security. The privacy challenge is the most essential among all of the discussed challenges as the importance of data which are transmitted from one location to another is increasing every day.

The co-ordination of the modes is done with the help of the data consistency, updating the propagation of the data, considering the consistent global states, effective group communication, distributed consensus and quorum consensus (Binetti et al. 2014). Even a single type of faulty process has the ability to solve the challenges of the unreliable network. Fault making is defined as a type of technique by which the complexities associated with the processes can be effectively reduced. The failure detectors are the other type of security measure in the unreliable networks.

The protocol rules of the consensus help in validating the blocks and the transactions associated with it. Every single data value is made to follow the specific set of rules which are followed in every distributed network. When the nodes of the network are failing or in the unreliable connections the consensus rules can work unanimously. The block chain technology sometimes goes through critical stages known as the double spend which can be effectively avoided with the help of the consensus protocols. Incentives and rewards are provided to the participants of the unreliable network for protecting the mechanism of the distributed systems where they are integrated. Tokens and cryptocurrencies are the different forms of incentives which are provided to each of the participants these are the most motivating factors for each of the participants (Gao et al. 2016). The digital currencies are used for maintaining a complete history of the transactions of users at any point of time or the entire block chain process as a whole.

The author of this resource helps in identifying the issues related to the different applications of the consensus protocols such as the involvement of the external threats in the transactions, ineffective selection of the leaders with low specifications, issues related to the state machine replication, incorrect validations of the atomic broadcasts.

Other writers have a completely different approach regarding this issue. There is a completely different opinion about the different discussed applications of consensus protocols. There are different issues related with those application so these uses also have certain limitations associated with them (Gao, Cui and Chen 2017). The different types of data collected from various sources help in identifying the issues related to the discussed applications of consensus protocols. Based on the research done with the help of the practical practitioners it can be concluded that the issues and challenges related with the discussed applications of consensus protocols should be minimized to a significant extent so that the desired security measures are considered in an unreliable network.

The discussed challenges of the unreliable network can also be evaluated from a different perspective as well. There will be challenges related to the techniques which are actively used to cope up with the challenges of consensus protocols. According to numerous resources, it was known that there are different types of complexities associated with internet content filters, proxy servers and firewalls. Blockage of wrong sites and contents are one of the most important drawbacks of the internet content filters. Some of the authors stressed on the accidental access to other sites as one of the major drawbacks of the content filters. The survey helps in understanding the compatibility issues and the issues of data theft issues of the proxy servers with the help of the TLS and SSL encrypted connections (Yu and Long 2015). Further studies help in understanding the limitations of the firewall as it cannot save the systems from the internal threats it can only block the external threats from entering the system.

Based on the above discussions of different authors it can be stated that that the challenges related to the unreliable networks can be purposefully solved with the help of the techniqies such as internet content filters, firewalls and the proxy servers. The blockage of the websites is also a preventive step against the challenges of the unreliable networks. There are drawbacks in those preventive steps which are needed to be minimised so that the efficiencies of those techniques can be maintained.

Conclusion 

From the above paper, it can be concluded that there are different types of limitations associated with the application of consensus protocols for the unreliable networks such as the cracking and the hacking activity of the cybercriminals who may have a role in the transaction processes. Unprofessional database design may lead to many other types of security issues as well. Inefficient election of the leaders is the other disadvantage of the application of consensus in unreliable network.

There are compatibility issues regarding the replication of the servers in a computer system as well. The prime challenges of the unreliable networks are also discussed in this paper such as the inefficient delivery of data to the desired locations. Maintenance of the alteration and integrity of the data are the other types of limitations of these unreliable networks. The implementation of the consensus protocols in unreliable network is also very costly in nature so effective planning is strictly required so that the effectiveness of the protocol is maintained. The proxy servers, internet content filters and the firewalls can be successfully used to solve the challenges related to the consensus protocols. It can be also understood that there are numerous issues related with the application of consensus protocols as well such as the blockage of website due to the internet content filters and data theft issues due to the proxy servers and restricted security issues of firewall.

Reference

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Chou, C.N., Lin, Y.J., Chen, R., Chang, H.Y., Tu, I. and Liao, S.W., 2018. Personalized Difficulty Adjustment for Countering the Double-Spending Attack in Proof-of-Work Consensus Protocols. arXiv preprint arXiv:1807.02933.

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Gao, L., Cui, Y., Chen, W. and Chen, W., 2016. Leader-following consensus for discrete-time descriptor multi-agent systems with observer-based protocols. Transactions of the Institute of Measurement and Control, 38(11), pp.1353-1364.

Hong, H., Yu, W., Fu, J. and Yu, X., 2018. A novel class of distributed fixed-time consensus protocols for second-order nonlinear and disturbed multi-agent systems. IEEE Transactions on Network Science and Engineering.

Li, G., Wang, X. and Li, S., 2017. Distributed composite output consensus protocols of higher-order multi-agent systems subject to mismatched disturbances. IET Control Theory & Applications, 11(8), pp.1162-1172.

Rezaee, H. and Abdollahi, F., 2015. Average consensus over high-order multiagent systems. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 60(11), pp.3047-3052.

Yu, S. and Long, X., 2015. Finite-time consensus for second-order multi-agent systems with disturbances by integral sliding mode. Automatica, 54, pp.158-165.

Zheng, Y. and Wang, L., 2016. Consensus of switched multiagent systems. IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems II: Express Briefs, 63(3), pp.314-318.