Reconsidering Consistency Management in Shared Data Spaces for Emergency and Rescue Applications.
Thomas Plagemann, Ellen Munthe-Kaas, Vera Goebel · 2007
Abstract: Efficient information sharing is very important for emergency and rescue operations. These operations often have to be performed in environments where no communication infrastructure exists. Therefore, Mobile Ad-Hoc Network (MANET) technologies need to be leveraged for generic information sharing services. However, MANETs are using the shared medium of wireless networks, i.e., IEEE 802.11, which means that bandwidth is limited and mobility might cause network partitions. In order to achieve high availability of important information and increase overall system performance, replication can be used. The drawback of aggressive replication is the problem of inconsistencies and the costs of possible conflict resolution strategies. Since emergency and rescue operations are only operating for a short time compared to classical database applications, storage space might not be considered a bottleneck even for small devices: Instead of deleting and updating data, data versions are created, and each application can influence the choice of consistency model for its data and use its own policy to resolve conflicts. Such an approach does not only allow for application specific conflict resolution, but also enables traceability of what happened and has been registered, in the aftermath of the emergency and rescue operation. 1