Production state-machine replication (SMR) implementations are complex, multi-layered architectures comprising data dissemination, ordering, execution, and reconfiguration components. Existing research consensus protocols rarely discuss reconfiguration. Those that do tightly couple membership changes to a specific algorithm. This prevents the independent upgrade of individual building blocks and forces expensive downtime when transitioning to new protocol implementations. Instead, modularity is essential for maintainability and system evolution in production deployments. We present Gauss, a reconfiguration engine designed to treat consensus protocols as interchangeable modules. By introducing a distinction between a consensus protocol's inner log and a sanitized outer log exposed to the RSM node, Gauss allows engineers to upgrade membership, failure thresholds, and the consensus protocol itself independently and with minimal global downtime. Our initial evaluation on the Rialo blockchain shows that this separation of concerns enables a seamless evolution of the SMR stack across a sequence of diverse protocol implementations.

翻译：生产环境中的状态机复制（SMR）实现是包含数据传播、排序、执行和重配置组件的复杂多层架构。现有研究中的共识协议很少讨论重配置机制，而涉及该机制的方案通常将成员变更与特定算法紧密耦合。这阻碍了各独立构建模块的单独升级，且在迁移至新协议实现时会导致昂贵的停机时间。相反，模块化对于生产部署的可维护性与系统演进至关重要。本文提出Gauss——一种将共识协议视为可互换模块的重配置引擎。通过区分共识协议内部日志与暴露给RSM节点的净化外部日志，Gauss使工程师能够独立升级成员资格、故障阈值及共识协议本身，同时将全局停机时间降至最低。在Rialo区块链上的初步评估表明，这种关注点分离机制支持SMR堆栈在不同协议实现序列间实现无缝演进。