Distributed Systems

Distributed Systems: Concurrency and Consistency explores the gray area of distributed systems and draws a map of weak consistency criteria, identifying several families and demonstrating how these may be implemented into a programming language. Unlike their sequential counterparts, distributed systems are much more difficult to design, and are therefore prone to problems. On a large scale, usability reminiscent of sequential consistency, which would provide the same global view to all users, is very expensive or impossible to achieve. This book investigates the best ways to specify the objects that are still possible to implement in these systems.

• Explores the gray area of distributed systems and draws a map of weak consistency criteria
• Investigates the best ways to specify the objects that are still possible to implement in these systems
• Presents a description of existing memory models and consistency criteria

Designers of distributed applications should read this book. Researchers in distributed systems are also a natural target for this book, as it opens a lot of perspectives that can result in very interesting scientific problems in this field

Introduction

• I.1 Preamble
• I.2 Distributed systems and concurrency
• I.3 Wait-free distributed systems
• I.4 Shared objects
• I.5 Shared object specification
• I.6 Organization

List of Notations

1: Specification of Shared Objects

• Abstract
• 1.1 Introduction
• 1.2 Sequential specifications
• 1.3 Concurrent histories
• 1.4 Consistency criteria
• 1.5 Conclusion

2: Overview of Existing Models

• Abstract
• 2.1 Introduction
• 2.2 Strong consistency
• 2.3 Transactional systems
• 2.4 Eventual consistency
• 2.5 Shared memory
• 2.6 Conclusion

3: Update Consistency

• Abstract
• 3.1 Preamble
• 3.2 Introduction
• 3.3 Consistency criteria
• 3.4 Generic implementations
• 3.5 Conclusion

4: Causal Consistency

• Abstract
• 4.1 Preamble
• 4.2 Introduction
• 4.3 Causality as a consistency criterion
• 4.4 Causal consistency
• 4.5 Specific behaviors
• 4.6 Conclusion

5: Weak Consistency Space

• Abstract
• 5.1 Introduction
• 5.2 Weak criteria
• 5.3 The structure of the weak criteria space
• 5.4 Hierarchy of abstract data types
• 5.5 Which criterion should be used?
• 5.6 Conclusion

6: CODS Library

• Abstract
• 6.1 Introduction
• 6.2 Overview
• 6.3 Defining new criteria
• 6.4 Conclusion