Session 5 and 6, November 2013

Anteneh Tesfaye
antenehta@gmail.com
Make copies of data or services on multiple machines.
WHY Replication¿?
Reliability
 Redundancy
Performance
 Reduce Communication
 Increase Processing Capacity
Scalability
 Geographic
 Size

Department of Computer Science

 REPLICATION ISSUES
 Performance and Scalability
 Keeping copies of data close to the processes
using them
 Updates
• Consistency (how to deal with updated data)
• Update propagation
 Replica placement
• How many replicas?
• Where to put them?
 Redirection/Routing
 Which replica should clients use?
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Department of
Computer Science
 Distributed Data Store

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  Replica manager process
Receives operation invocation requests from
clients and executes the operations locally
on its copy of the data
Creates communication with replica
managers running on the other replica servers

November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science

 Timeline of two clients accessing a distributed data-store

Time flows to the right: Absolute global time + Position…

Time of issue, time of execution, and time of completion
Arrows show time of execution on remote replicas
Read: locally Write: locally + Propagated to remote . . .
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 INCONSISTENCY
 Staleness:
 How old is the data?
 How old is the data allowed to be?
🞄 Time
🞄 Versions
 Operation order:
 Were operations performed in the right order?
 What orderings are allowed?
 Conflicting Data:
 Do replicas have exactly the same data?
 What differences are permitted?
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 Consistency Models
 Concerned with consistency of a data store.
 Specifies characteristics of valid
total orderings
1. Data Centric Consistency Model
2. Client Centric Consistency Model

November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science

 Data Centric Consistency Model
A contract, between a distributed data store
and clients, in which the data store specifies
precisely what the results of read and write
operations are in the presence of
concurrency
 Described consistency is experienced by all clients
 Multiple clients accessing the same data store
 Client A, Client B, Client C see same kinds of orderings
 Non-mobile clients (replica used doesn’t change)
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  Two approaches to achieve data-centric
consistency:
1. Continuous consistency
 Goal: to impose limits to deviations between
replicas
2. Ordering-based consistency
Data consistency can be defined in terms of
ordering of reads/writes

November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science

 1. Continuous consistency
 Goal: to impose limits to deviations
between replicas
 The deviations between replicas describe
the degree of consistency
🞄 in their numerical value
🞄 in their relative staleness
🞄 with respect to (number and order) of
performed update operations
November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science
 2. Ordering-based consistency
 Various consistency models are proposed.
 Strict consistency
🞄 Absolute time-based.
 Sequential consistency
🞄 All processes see same order of operations.
 Causal consistency
 All processes see causally-related operations in
same order
NB: Events are Causally Related if:
 A read is followed by a write in the same client
 A write of a particular data item is followed by a read of that data
item in any client
November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science
 . . . Ordering-based consistency
Synchronization-based consistency
🞄 Weak consistency
🞄 Consistency is made after synchronization is done.
🞄 Entry consistency
🞄 Consistency is made when a critical region is
entered.

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Department of
Computer Science
 CLIENT-CENTRIC CONSISTENCY MODELS
 Provides guarantees about ordering of operations for a single
client
 Single client accessing data store
 Client accesses different replicas (modified data store model)
 Data isn’t shared by clients
 Client A, Client B, Client C may see different kinds of
orderings

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 Client-Centric Consistency Models
 Monotonic Reads
 Monotonic Writes
 Read Your Writes
 Writes Follow Reads

November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science

 Monotonic Reads
If a client has seen a value of x at a time t, it
will never see an older version of x at a later time

Monotonic Read Not Monotonic Read

 Each time you connect to a different e-mail server, that

server fetches (at least) all the updates from the server
you previously visited.
November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science
 Monotonic Writes
A write operation on data item x is completed before any
successive write on x by the same client
 All writes by a single client are sequentially ordered.

Monotonic Write Not Monotonic Write

 Updating a program at server S2, and ensuring that all
components on which compilation and linking depends, are
also placed at S2.
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 Read Your Writes
 The effect of a write on x will always be seen by a successive
read of x by the same client

Consistent Inconsistent

 Updating your Web page and guaranteeing that your Web

browser shows the newest version instead of its cached copy.

November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science

 Writes Follow Reads
A write operation on x will be performed on a copy of x that is
up to date with the value most recently read by the same client

Consistent Inconsistent

 See reactions to posted articles only if you have the original

posting

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 CHOOSING THE RIGHT MODEL
 Tradeoffs
 Consistency and Redundancy:
• All copies must be strongly consistent
• All copies must contain full state
• Reduced consistency  Reduced reliability
 Consistency and Scalability:
• Implementation of consistency must be
scalable
🞄 don’t take a centralized approach
🞄 avoid too much extra communication
November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science
 CHOOSING THE RIGHT MODEL
 Tradeoffs
 Consistency and Performance:
• Consistency requires extra work
• Consistency requires extra communication
• Can result in loss of overall performance

November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science

 CONSISTENCY PROTOCOLS
 Implementation of a consistency model
 Primary-Based Protocols:
 Remote-write protocols
 Local-write protocols
 Replicated-Write Protocols:
 Active Replication
 Quorum-Based Protocols
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 REMOTE-WRITE PROTOCOLS
 Single Server:
 All writes and reads executed at single server
 No replication of data

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 Primary-Backup:
 All writes executed at single server, Reads
are local
 Updates block until executed on all backups

Performance

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 LOCAL-WRITE PROTOCOLS
 Migration:
 Data item migrated to local server on
access
 Distributed, non-replicated, data store
 Single Copy Migration
🞄 A type of local-write protocol in which a
single copy is migrated between processes
(fully distributed non-replicated version of
the data store).
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  Primary Migration
🞄 A variant of local-write protocol with
primary-backup protocol in which the primary
copy migrates between processes that wish to
perform a write operation.

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 ACTIVE REPLICATION
 Updates (write operation) sent to
all replicas + Read locally
 Need totally-ordered multicast
 Needs: sequencer/coordinator
to add sequence numbers

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 QUORUM-BASED PROTOCOLS
 Voting
 Read Quorum: Nr
 Write Quorum: Nw
 Nr + Nw > N Why?
 Nw > N/2 Why?

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 A correct write set A choice that may
choice of November 11, 2013
lead to write-
read and write
conflicts
A correct
choice,
known as
ROWA (read
one, write
all)
Department of
Computer Science
 REPLICA PLACEMENT

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 Permanent Replicas:
 Initial set of replicas
 Created and maintained by data-store owner(s)
 Allow writes
 Server-Initiated Replicas:
 Enhance performance
 Not maintained by owner
 Placed close to groups of clients
🞄 Dynamically

November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science

  Client-Initiated Replicas:
 Client caches
 Temporary
 Owner not aware of replica
 Placed close to client
 Maintained by host (often client)

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 DYNAMIC REPLICATION
 Situation changes over time
🞄 Number of users, Amount of data
🞄 Bursty changes: Flash crowds
🞄 R/W ratio
 Dynamic replica placement

November 11, 2013 Department of Computer Science