Abstract
This paper considers the programming of passive (cold and warm standbys) and active replicated systems in Ada 95. We show that it is relatively easy to develop systems which act as standbys using the facilities provided by the language and the Distributed Systems Annex. Arguably, active replication in Ada 95 can be supported in a manner which is transparent to the application. However, this is implementation-dependent, requires a complex distributed consensus algorithm (or a carefully chosen subset of the language to be used) and has little flexibility. We therefore consider two extensions to the Distributed Systems Annex to help give the application programmer more control. The first is a via a new categorization pragma which specifies that a RCI package can be replicated in more than one partition. The second is through the introduction of a coordinated type which has a single primitive operation. Objects which are created from extensions to coordinated types can be freely replicated across the distributed system. When the primitive operation is called, the call is posted to all sites where a replica resides, effectively providing a broadcast (multicast) facility. We also consider extensions to the partition communication subsystem which implement these new features.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 361-373 |
| Number of pages | 13 |
| Journal | Computer journal |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Publication status | Published - 1996 |
Keywords
- BYZANTINE GENERALS