Making Simplified SMR Protocol Tolerant to Partial Network Partitions

State Machine Replication (SMR) is key to consistent, fault-tolerant distributed systems. Rabia, an SMR protocol, uses a randomized binary consensus approach for simplicity. Our study reveals that Rabia stops functioning during partial network partitions, exposing a significant weakness in its design. We propose an enhancement to Rabia that adds tolerance to such partitions without compromising its simplicity. Our improved version of Rabia continues to operate under partial network partitions, unlike the original protocol which completely halts. As a result, this enhancement expands Rabia’s applicability while maintaining its core advantage of simplicity.