An efficient, fault-tolerant protocol for replicated data management

Abstract

A data management protocol for executing transactions on a replicated database is presented. The protocol ensures one-copy serializability. i.e., the concurrent execution of transactions on a replicated database is equivalent to some serial execution of the same transactions on a non-replicated database. The protocol tolerates a large class of failures, including: processor and communication link crashes, partitioning of the communication network, lost messages, and slow responses of processors and communication links. Processor and link recoveries are also handled. The protocol implements the reading of a replicated object efficiently by reading the nearest available copy of the object. When reads outnumber writes, the protocol performs better than other known protocols.