It might be worth reading that first to get into the right frame of mind.
For reference, I've had to code solutions for both of these problems for real in safety-critical situations. Interesting challenge.
ADDED IN EDIT:
The paper with the original solution:
http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/360000/357176/p382-lamport.p...
ADDED IN EDIT (2)
Amazon's S3 service suffered a failure of this type:
http://status.aws.amazon.com/s3-20080720.html
It might be worth reading that first to get into the right frame of mind.
For reference, I've had to code solutions for both of these problems for real in safety-critical situations. Interesting challenge.
ADDED IN EDIT:
The paper with the original solution:
http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/360000/357176/p382-lamport.p...
ADDED IN EDIT (2)
Amazon's S3 service suffered a failure of this type:
http://status.aws.amazon.com/s3-20080720.html