Abstract

quirement faced by the design is that it minimize the delay added to fetch and commit operations invoked by clients. We have devised techniques that eliminate major overheads when a client fetches a block of objects from a server: no extra messages need be sent, the server need not record the references contained in the objects in the block, and no stable-storage write is required. However, when a client commits a transaction, extra messages and stable-storage writes may be required for garbage collection purposes. We propose a scheme that masks the delay by performing garbage collection work in parallel with normal commit-time work. The rest of the distributed garbage collection protocol is devised so that it works in the background; the protocol uses only unreliable messages and tolerates node crashes and network partitions. Since our design is based on keeping a record of remote references, it does not collect distributed cyclic garbage. The thesis includes a discussion of various

Citations