Resource sharing for replicated synchronous groupware
Begole, J.; Smith, R.B.; Struble, C.A.; Shaffer, C.A.
Networking, IEEE/ACM Transactions on
Volume 9, Issue 6, Dec 2001 Page(s):833 - 843
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/90.974535
Summary:We describe problems associated with accessing data resources
external to the application, which we term externalities, in replicated
synchronous collaborative applications. Accessing externalities such as
files, databases, network connections, environment variables, and the
system clock is not as straightforward in replicated collaborative
software as in single-user applications or centralized collaborative
systems. We describe ad hoc solutions that add to development cost and
complexity because the developer must program different behavior for
different replicas. We introduce a novel general approach to accessing
externalities uniformly in a replicated collaborative system. The
approach uses a semireplicated architecture where the actual externality
resides at a single location and is accessed via replicated proxies.
This approach allows developers of replicated synchronous groupware to
(1) use similar externality access mechanisms as in traditional
single-user applications, and (2) program all replicas to execute the
same behavior. We describe a general design for proxied access to
read-only, write-only, and read-write externalities and discuss the
tradeoffs of this semireplicated approach over full, literal replication
and the class of applications to which this approach can be successfully
applied. We also describe details of a prototype implementation of this
approach within a replicated collaboration-transparency system, called
Flexible JAMM (Java Applets Made Multiuser)
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