The CACTUS object server: design and implementation issues

CACTUS is a compact and reliable object storage system based on peer-to-peer architecture with distributed transaction processing capability. The kernel is implemented with the multi-thread mechanisms to provide a high performance multi-transaction environment. All sites, installed with CACTUS, of the networked workstations are on an equal footing. The system can handle local and remote transactions including accessing remote objects or processing remote accesses. In this paper, we give an architectural overview of CACTUS and discuss some implementation issues. It mentions the special contributions such as transient large objects, the coarser lock granularity and its associated protocol. A cost model is developed to demonstrate that the new scheme yields performances which are superior in most common cases and inferior under certain situations.