Specification and Implementation of Atomic Data Types.
Abstract
Maintaining the consistency of long-lived, on-line dataa is a difficult task, particularly in a distributed system. It explores an approach in which atomicity is ensured by the data objects shared by concurrent activities; such objects are called atomic objects, and data types whose objects are atomic are called atomic types. This dissertation addresses three fundamental questions: What is an atomic type? How can an atomic type be specified? How can an atomic type be implemented? Atomicity of activities is a global property of an entire system, while atomicity of types is a local property of individual types. The definitions of atomicity discussed encompass both serializability and recoverability, and use user-supplied specifications of objects to permit greater concurrency. The specification of a data type divides into two parts: the serial specification, which describes how the type behaves in the absence of concurrency and failures, and the behavioral specification, which describes how the type supports atomicity. Several implementations of atomic types are presented illustrating how existing techniques for synchronization and recovery can be extended to use information about the behavior of objects to increase concurrency.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 01, 1984
- Accession Number
- ADA141823
Entities
People
- W. E. Weihl
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology