The article “State-Machine Replication for Planet-Scale Systems”, authored by Vitor Enes and Carlos Baquero, researchers of INESC TEC’s High-Assurance Software Laboratory (HASLab), in collaboration with researchers from University of Nantes, Télécom SudParis and IMDEA Software Institute, was presented at the 15th ACM European Conference on Computer Systems (EuroSys 2020), which is a top-tier conference in the area of data-intensive applications.

This article introduces Atlas, a new consensus protocol tailored for planet-scale applications. Consensus is essential in such applications since many of their underlying components, such as coordination kernels like Apache Zookeeper or critical databases like Google Cloud Spanner, require the strong consistency guarantees it provides. With Atlas, clients enjoy the same quality of service independently of their geographical locations and performance improves as sites are added closer to clients.

It’s important to note that EuroSys is a top-tier conference in the area of data-intensive applications and has received the A rating from the Australian CORE ranking and the 2020’s edition was held as a virtual (online) conference on April 27-30, 2020.