Fast and Interactive Byzantine Fault-tolerant Web Services via Session-Based Consensus Decoupling

2025-07-10

AI Summary

To address the challenge that Byzantine Fault-Tolerant (BFT) Web services struggle to meet the low-latency requirements of interactive applications while maintaining security, this paper proposes a session-aware, two-layer consensus decoupling architecture. It is the first to separate user interaction operations (pre-consensus) from final consistency confirmation (post-consensus), leveraging a transaction buffering layer to ensure session-local consistency. Combined with batched commit and consensus simulation techniques, the architecture achieves sub-200 ms end-to-end latency under BFT constraints. Experimental results show that the interaction layer attains over four times the throughput of the consensus layer, while preserving strict transaction integrity and strong consistency. The approach is validated in a supply chain management scenario, demonstrating its practical efficacy. This work establishes a novel paradigm for distributed Web services that simultaneously guarantee high security and low latency.

Technology Category

• Search and Optimization: Distributed Search
• Application Domains: Security
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Distributed CSP/Optimization

Application Category

• Responsible Web: Consent frameworks and practices on the web
• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Decentralized Web and Fediverse systems
• Security and Privacy: Security in web-based applications and services

Abstract

Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) web services provide critical integrity guarantees for distributed applications but face significant latency challenges that hinder interactive user experiences. We propose a novel two-layer architecture that addresses this fundamental tension between security and responsiveness in BFT systems. Our approach introduces a session-aware transaction buffer layer (Layer 2) that delivers immediate feedback to users through consensus simulation, while periodically committing batched operations to a fully Byzantine fault-tolerant consensus layer (Layer 1). By separating interactive operations from consensus finalization, our system achieves responsive user experiences of under 200ms, while maintaining strong BFT security guarantees. We demonstrate the efficacy of our architecture through a supply chain management implementation, where operators require both immediate feedback during multi-step workflows and tamper-proof record keeping. Our evaluation shows that our Layer 2 operations perform four times faster than the Layer 1 counterpart, while substantially preserving the end-to-end transaction integrity. Our approach enables BFT applications in domains previously considered impractical due to latency constraints, such as metaverse environments, where users require both responsive interaction and guaranteed state consistency.

Problem

• Reducing latency in Byzantine fault-tolerant web services
• Balancing security and responsiveness in BFT systems
• Enabling interactive user experiences with strong BFT guarantees

Innovation

• Two-layer architecture for BFT web services
• Session-aware transaction buffer for immediate feedback
• Periodic batch commits to BFT consensus layer