Quantum mechanics provides several features useful for datacenter networking. The no cloning theorem, which states that it is impossible to mate a duplicate of an arbitrary, unknown quantum state, can be used to detect eavesdroppers. Entanglement allows two parties to have common knowledge of a shared state.
These properties are being used today for quantum key exchange and quantum computing, but they are currently too expensive for general use. Fortunately, we can use classical mechanisms to get a close enough approximation of these quantum properties to solve some important problems in distributed computing.
Nothing we describe here is quantum mechanical. Rather, we show that it is possible to use classical mechanisms to emulate some properties of quantum mechanics, which enable us to address interesting problems in distributed computing. The engineering insight, is that we can get closer to achieving these properties than might be expected through conventional thinking. The key to obtaining the properties we desire is to make the inherently asynchronous system temporarily locally synchronous for the operations we need.
In this patent, we describe how to classically emulate the parts of the no cloning theorem and entanglement that we need for datacenter networking. We then demonstrate how those approximations to quantum behavior can be used to solve important problems in distributed computing, such as ‘exactly-once’ semantics in an environment where failures occur and can be healed without applications needing to know.