Two Epoch Algorithms for Disaster Recovery

Abstract:

Remote backup copies of databases are often maintained to ensure availability of data even in the presence of extensive failures, for which local replication mechanisms may be inadequate. We present two versions of an epoch algorithm for maintaining a consistent remote backup copy of a database. The algorithms ensure scalability, which makes them suitable for very large databases. The correctness and the performance of the algorithms are discussed, and an additional application for distributed group commit is given.