Tailoring consistency in group membership for mobile networks

• Decoupling node discovery and connectivity from the membership service allowed the removal of the full member connectivity assumption, which was required in previously membership services.
• Partial member connectivity allows members to agree on a shared approximation of the group membership.

Mobility and intermittent connectivity inject inaccuracy in determining group membership and exacerbate the time required to agree on the current group membership. In this paper, we present a group membership service based on partial member connectivity that allows members to agree on a shared approximation of the group membership based on local neighborhood connectivity. In particular, the consistency needs provided by the application determine the degree of consistency of the membership service and allow the membership service to tailor the neighborhood service in terms of fidelity ratio and time detection period.