Resilient data management for replicated mobile database systems

We propose a new replication control scheme for mobile database systems. Re plicating data inevitably induces the burden of maintaining consistency, wh ich requires more complex synchronization mechanisms, especially in the pre sence of communication failures. If a communication link fails, all sites a re divided into two disjoint groups: the major group called the quorum part ition and the minor group called the non-quorum partition. This phenomenon, called network partitioning, could lead to access starvation. In order to access replicated databases without access starvation even in the presence of network partitioning, we propose a new scheme called fault-tolerant quor um consensus (FTQC). FTQC is based on the idea that quorum formation is all owed even in the non-quorum partition. FTQC guarantees inter-partition one- copy serializability, without sacrificing data availability. (C) 1999 Elsev ier Science B.V. All rights reserved.