Minimizing Redundant Work in Lazily Updated Replicated Databases

Abstract

Modern databases which manage lazy (or deferred updates) to clients which subscribe to replicated data do so on a client-by-client basis. They ignore any redundant work done during update processing caused by the commonality in client subscriptions to replicas. This paper proposes a new way to process updates which minimizes this redundancy and results in a reduction of update processing cost at the server in terms of disk space and time consumed in this phase. Ultimately, updates are available quicker, and duration during which clients must enduring stale data is reduced. Results of studies involving, iMobile, a currently available system, are reported, and are extremely encouraging.