An atomic commit protocol for gigabit-networked distributed database systems

In the near future, different database sites will be interconnected via gig abit networks, forming a very powerful distributed database system. In such an environment, the propagation latency will be the dominant component of the overall communication cost while the migration of large amounts of data will not pose a problem. Furthermore, computer systems are expected to bec ome even more reliable than today's systems with long mean time between fai lures and short mean time to repair. In this paper, we present implicit yes -vote (IYV), a one-phase atomic commit protocol, that exploits these new do main characteristics to minimize the cost of distributed transaction commit ment. IYV eliminates the explicit voting phase of the two-phase commit prot ocol, hence reducing the number of sequential phases of message passing dur ing normal processing. In the case of a participant's site failure, IYV sup ports the option of forward recovery by enabling partially executed transac tions that are still active in the system to resume their execution when th e failed participant is recovered. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All right s reserved.