Eventually consistent transactions

Sebastian Burckhardt, Daan Leijen, Manuel Fähndrich, Mooly Sagiv

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

When distributed clients query or update shared data, eventual consistency can provide better availability than strong consistency models. However, programming and implementing such systems can be difficult unless we establish a reasonable consistency model, i.e. some minimal guarantees that programmers can understand and systems can provide effectively. To this end, we propose a novel consistency model based on eventually consistent transactions. Unlike serializable transactions, eventually consistent transactions are ordered by two order relations (visibility and arbitration) rather than a single order relation. To demonstrate that eventually consistent transactions can be effectively implemented, we establish a handful of simple operational rules for managing replicas, versions and updates, based on graphs called revision diagrams. We prove that these rules are sufficient to guarantee correct implementation of eventually consistent transactions. Finally, we present two operational models (single server and server pool) of systems that provide eventually consistent transactions.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProgramming Languages and Systems - 21st European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2012, Held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2012, Proceedings
Pages67-86
Number of pages20
DOIs
StatePublished - 2012
Event21st European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2012, Held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2012 - Tallinn, Estonia
Duration: 24 Mar 20121 Apr 2012

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume7211 LNCS

Conference

Conference21st European Symposium on Programming, ESOP 2012, Held as Part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2012
Country/TerritoryEstonia
CityTallinn
Period24/03/121/04/12

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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