KITLOG: a Generic Logging Service.
Michel Ruffin · 1992
A generic logging service should cater to the variable and even antagonistic needs of clients, without imposing unnecessary overhead on clients that do not use all of its functions. K i t L o g provides an original solution to this problem by decomposing logging characteristics into five mechanisms: buffering policy, distribution of records, replication of records, sharing of logs, and management of physical media. Each characteristic is embodied in a class. For each class, multiple policy implementations can be provided. Instances of these classes are stackable in any appropriate number or order. A client customizes his log, to a particular set of failure assumptions, by selecting adequate classes, instantiating them, and connecting the instances together. 1 Introduction Distributed operating systems must provide tools for reliability. Logs are the greatest common divisor of most reliability mechanisms: well-known algorithms for fault tolerance, such as two-step commitment [1], rec...