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Encyclopedia of Database Systems pp 3451–3455Cite as

Weak Consistency Models for Replicated Data

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Synonyms

Weak memory consistency; Copy divergence

Definition

Some designs for a distributed database system involve having several copies or replicas for a data item, at different sites, with algorithms that do not update these replicas in unison. In such a system, clients may detect a discrepancy between the copies. Each particular weak consistency model describes which discrepancies may be seen. If a system provides a weak consistency model, then the clients will require more careful programming than otherwise. Eventual consistency (q.v.) is the best-known weak consistency model.

Historical Background

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, replication research focused on systems that allowed replicas to diverge from one another in controlled ways. Epidemic or multi-master algorithms were introduced in the work of Demers et al. [4]. These researchers identified the importance of session properties [8], which ensure that clients see information that includes changes they could reasonably...

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Recommended Reading

  1. Alonso R., Barbará D., and Garcia-Molina H. Data caching issues in an information retrieval system. ACM Trans. Database Syst., 15(3):359–384, 1990.

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  3. Bernstein P.A., Fekete A., Guo H., Ramakrishnan R., and Tamma P. Relaxed-currency serializability for middle-tier caching and replication. In Proc. ACM SIGMOD Int. Conf. on Management of Data, 2006, pp. 599–610.

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  4. Demers A.J., Greene D.H., Hauser C., Irish W., Larson J., Shenker S., Sturgis H.E., Swinehart D.C., and Terry D.B. Epidemic algorithms for replicated database maintenance. In Proc. ACM SIGACT-SIGOPS 6th Symp. on the Principles of Dist. Comp. 1987, pp. 1–12.

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  5. Gray J., Helland P., O’Neil P.E., and Shasha D. The dangers of replication and a solution. In Proc. ACM SIGMOD Int. Conf. on Management of Data, 1996, pp. 173–182.

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  6. Ladin R., Liskov B., Shrira L., and Ghemawat S. Providing high availability using lazy replication. ACM Trans. Comput. Syst., 10(4):360–391, 1992.

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  7. Sheth A.P. and Rusinkiewicz M. Management of interdependent data: Specifying dependency and consistency requirements. In Proc. 1st Workshop on the Management of Replicated Data, 1990, pp. 133–136.

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  8. Terry D.B., Demers A.J., Petersen K., Spreitzer M., Theimer M., and Welch B.B. Session guarantees for weakly consistent replicated data. In Proc. 3rd Int. Conf. on Parallel and Distributed Information Systems, 1994, pp. 140–149.

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  9. Wiederhold G. and Qian X. Consistency control of replicated data in federated databases. In Proc. 1st Workshop on the Management of Replicated Data, 1990, pp. 130–132.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW, Australia

    Alan Fekete

Authors
  1. Alan Fekete
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, 266 Ferst Drive, 30332-0765, Atlanta, GA, USA

    LING LIU (Professor) (Professor)

  2. Database Research Group David R. Cheriton School of Computer Science, University of Waterloo, 200 University Avenue West, N2L 3G1, Waterloo, ON, Canada

    M. TAMER ÖZSU (Professor and Director, University Research Chair) (Professor and Director, University Research Chair)

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© 2009 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Fekete, A. (2009). Weak Consistency Models for Replicated Data. In: LIU, L., ÖZSU, M.T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Database Systems. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-39940-9_1537

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