Efficient directory management for distributed naming

In a distributed system, accesses to an object may come from many nodes. The name of an object may need to be resolved at those nodes. To improve the efficiency and availability of name resolution, a directory file is often replicated at several nodes. Consistency control of data replicas becomes an important issue in such systems. By using the special consistency requirements of naming services and the data structure of directory files, the author designs a new and efficient method of managing directory file replicas to provide consistent naming services. His approach has the following features: (1) each node issues updates asynchronously. (2) minimum delay of reflecting a remote update on the local replica. (3) neither global locking nor globally synchronized clocks are used.<
>