Rendezvous: an alternative approach to conflict resolution for real time multi-user applications

Up until now little support has been provided for shared state systems in environments with highly unpredictable network connections, such as mobile networks. Shared state conflict management has instead been focused on more stable network environments, such as the Internet, where delays may occur but where the high latency and frequent disconnection that can plague mobile networks are relatively uncommon. As the need for real-time multiuser applications in these less predictable environments increases, this inevitably affects the design of conflict management in shared state systems. Rendezvous is a set of protocols intended to maintain synchronization of shared state between clients collaborating over a distributed, real-time environment where high latency and frequent disconnection are likely. Key to Rendezvous is the idea that when a conflict occurs the conflicting entities need not rollback processes in order to resolve the difficulties but instead take into account their mutual targets and agree on a state in which they converge at a later time. This paper details the earliest experiments in the design and implementation of Rendezvous as we study the feasibility of the approach.