Gossiping Over Storage Systems Is Practical

Gossip-based mechanisms are touted for their simplicity, limited resource usage, robustness to failures, and tunable system behavior. These qualities make gossiping an ideal mechanism for storage systems that are responsible for maintaining and updating data in a mist of failures and limited resources (e.g., intermittent network connectivity, limited bandwidth, constrained communication range, or limited battery power). The authors focus on persistent storage systems that, unlike mere caches, are responsible for both the durability and the consistency of data.