Window-consistent replication for real-time applications

Two widely-studied approaches for structuring fault-tolerant services are the state-machine and the primary-backup replication schemes. For a large class of soft and hard real-time applications, the degree of consistency among servers can be exploited to design replication protocols with predictable timing behavior. This is particularly useful in applications such as automated process control, in which one can trade off the quality or precision for timely availability of data. This paper presents the architecture and prototype implementation of a primary-backup replication service that employs window consistency semantics between the primary data repository and the backups. A client registers a data object with the service by declaring the consistency requirements for the data, in terms of a time window. The primary ensures that each backup site maintains a version of the object that was valid on the primary within the preceding time window by scheduling update messages to the backups. Decoupling the transmission of updates to the backups from the processing of client requests permits the primary to handle a higher rate of operations and provide more timely service to clients. The non-blocking semantics free the client from waiting for updates to the backups to complete. Furthermore, real-time scheduling of update messages can guarantee controlled inconsistency between the primary and backup repositories.<
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