Maintaining Consistency in Distributed Systems
Abstract
The emerging generation of database systems and general purpose operating systems share many characteristics: object orientation, a stress on distribution, and the utilization of concurrency to increase performance. A consequence is that both types of systems are confronted with the problem of maintaining the consistency of multi component distributed applications in the face of concurrency and failures. Moreover, large applications can be expected to combine database and general purpose components. This paper discusses four basic approaches to the distributed consistency problem as it arises in such hybrid applications. The organization of the paper is as follows. We begin by reviewing the database dat and execution models and presenting the transactional approach to concurrency control and failure atomicity. We then turn to distributed systems, focusing on aspects related to synchronization and fault tolerance and introducing virtually synchronous process groups. The last part of the paper focuses on an object oriented view of distributed systems, and suggests that the linearizability model of Herlihy and Wing might be used to link the virtual synchrony approach with transactions and internal synchronization mechanisms such as monitors, arriving at a flexible, general approach to concurrency control of systems built of typed objects.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Nov 01, 1991
- Accession Number
- ADA243512
Entities
People
- Ken Birman
Organizations
- Cornell University