Replication Using Group Communication Over a Partitioned Network
Yair Amir · 1995
In systems based on the client-server model, a single server may serve many clients and the heavy load on the server may cause the response time to be adversely affected. In such circumstances, replicating data or servers may improve performance. Replication may also improve the availability of information when processors crash or the network partitions. Existing replication methods are often needlessly expensive. They sometimes use pointto -point communication when multicast communication is available; they typically pay the full price of end-to-end acknowledgments for all of the participants for every update; they may claim locks, and therefore, may be vulnerable to faults that can unnecessarily block the system for long periods of time. This thesis presents a new architecture and algorithms for replication over a partitioned network. The architecture is structured into two layers: a replication server and a group communication layer. Each of the replication servers maintains a priva...