UnifyFL: Enabling Decentralized Cross-Silo Federated Learning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: S, Sarang, Dhakshinamoorthy, Druva, Sharma, Aditya Shiva, Bhadauria, Yuvraj Singh, Vivek, Siddharth Chaitra, Bansal, Arihant, Paul, Arnab K.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author S, Sarang
Dhakshinamoorthy, Druva
Sharma, Aditya Shiva
Bhadauria, Yuvraj Singh
Vivek, Siddharth Chaitra
Bansal, Arihant
Paul, Arnab K.
author_facet S, Sarang
Dhakshinamoorthy, Druva
Sharma, Aditya Shiva
Bhadauria, Yuvraj Singh
Vivek, Siddharth Chaitra
Bansal, Arihant
Paul, Arnab K.
contents Federated Learning (FL) is a decentralized machine learning (ML) paradigm in which models are trained on private data across several devices called clients and combined at a single node called an aggregator rather than aggregating the data itself. Many organizations employ FL to have better privacy-aware ML-driven decision-making capabilities. However, organizations often operate independently rather than collaborate to enhance their FL capabilities due to the lack of an effective mechanism for collaboration. The challenge lies in balancing trust and resource efficiency. One approach relies on trusting a third-party aggregator to consolidate models from all organizations (multilevel FL), but this requires trusting an entity that may be biased or unreliable. Alternatively, organizations can bypass a third party by sharing their local models directly, which requires significant computational resources for validation. Both approaches reflect a fundamental trade-off between trust and resource constraints, with neither offering an ideal solution. In this work, we develop a trust-based cross-silo FL framework called UnifyFL, which uses decentralized orchestration and distributed storage. UnifyFL provides flexibility to the participating organizations and presents synchronous and asynchronous modes to handle stragglers. Our evaluation on a diverse testbed shows that UnifyFL achieves a performance comparable to the ideal multilevel centralized FL while allowing trust and optimal use of resources.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_18916
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle UnifyFL: Enabling Decentralized Cross-Silo Federated Learning
S, Sarang
Dhakshinamoorthy, Druva
Sharma, Aditya Shiva
Bhadauria, Yuvraj Singh
Vivek, Siddharth Chaitra
Bansal, Arihant
Paul, Arnab K.
Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Artificial Intelligence
Federated Learning (FL) is a decentralized machine learning (ML) paradigm in which models are trained on private data across several devices called clients and combined at a single node called an aggregator rather than aggregating the data itself. Many organizations employ FL to have better privacy-aware ML-driven decision-making capabilities. However, organizations often operate independently rather than collaborate to enhance their FL capabilities due to the lack of an effective mechanism for collaboration. The challenge lies in balancing trust and resource efficiency. One approach relies on trusting a third-party aggregator to consolidate models from all organizations (multilevel FL), but this requires trusting an entity that may be biased or unreliable. Alternatively, organizations can bypass a third party by sharing their local models directly, which requires significant computational resources for validation. Both approaches reflect a fundamental trade-off between trust and resource constraints, with neither offering an ideal solution. In this work, we develop a trust-based cross-silo FL framework called UnifyFL, which uses decentralized orchestration and distributed storage. UnifyFL provides flexibility to the participating organizations and presents synchronous and asynchronous modes to handle stragglers. Our evaluation on a diverse testbed shows that UnifyFL achieves a performance comparable to the ideal multilevel centralized FL while allowing trust and optimal use of resources.
title UnifyFL: Enabling Decentralized Cross-Silo Federated Learning
topic Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.18916