Orcaella: Hybrid Fault Tolerance with Client-Selectable Finality Latency

Abstract

Classical partially synchronous state machine replication, as in PBFT, tolerates f Byzantine replicas among n at least 3f+1 using three communication steps per request. Recent protocols such as Minimmit achieve two-message-delay decisions under stronger size assumptions, notably n at least 5f+1 when any silent replica must be counted as a potential equivocator. Hydrangea and Kudzu treat mixed Byzantine and crash faults, focusing on providing a fast-path under optimistic conditions while maintaining a fall-back commitment path similar to PBFT. In this paper, we also consider a mixed model, but focus on studying the fault tolerance of the 2-message-delay commit. For this, we prove a tight bound of n at least 5f+3c+1. Extending this result, we also show that there exists a more resilient commit path that allows an extra f_abc < n-3f-2c alive-but-corrupt faults at 4-message-delays. Core liveness is claimed in executions with at most f equivocators; if this regime is violated (e.g., AbC-induced forks), the protocol enters synchronous recovery, where only the resilient-path safety guarantee is preserved. As a result, for f=16, c=6, and n=99, we obtain a commit path that tolerates 22% of replicas failing for liveness, 16% equivocating for 1-RTT safety, and 54% equivocating for 2-RTT safety.