Virtual Consensus in Delos

Explore the innovative approach to consensus-based replicated systems presented in this USENIX OSDI '20 conference talk. Learn about virtualizing consensus through the shared log API, enabling services to change consensus protocols without downtime. Discover the VirtualLog, a generic reconfiguration layer, and Loglets, simple and composable ordering protocols. Examine the development of Delos, a production database leveraging virtual consensus for rapid deployment and protocol upgrades. Understand how Delos achieves significant performance improvements by dynamically changing consensus protocols, including scaling throughput and increasing failure thresholds. Gain insights into the challenges of building fault-tolerant systems and the potential for innovative research to reach production environments.

Intro
the Facebook stack turtles all the way down...
the need for a new storage system
the Delos storage system or: "how to build a production-ready storage system in eight months."
the Delos storage system: above the log
the Delos storage system: below the log
virtualizing consensus via the VirtualLog
difficult to build a log that is simple, fast, fault-tolerant
the NativeLoglet
switching logs mid-flight
deploying Loglets: converged vs. disaggregated
composing Loglets: the Striped Loglet
trimming the VirtualLog
Delos as a platform original goal: can we build a zero-dependency, fault-tolerant system with a rich API...in months?
conclusion