Constructing reliable distributed applications using actions and objects

Abstract

A computation model for distributed systems which has found widespread acceptance is that of atomic actions (atomic transactions) controlling operations on persistent objects. Much current research work is oriented towards the design and implementation of distributed systems supporting such an object and action model. However, little work has been done to investigate the suitability of such a model for building reliable distributed systems. Atomic actions have many properties which are desirable when constructing reliable distributed applications, but these same properties can also prove to be obstructive. This thesis examines the suitability of atomic actions for building reliable distributed applications. Several new structuring techniques are proposed providing more flexibility than hitherto possible for building a large class of applications. The proposed new structuring techniques are: Serialising Actions, Top-Level Independent Actions, N-Level Independent Actions, Common Actions and Glued Actions. A new generic form of action is also proposed, the Coloured Actions, which provides more control over concurrency and recovery than traditional actions. It will be shown that Coloured Actions provide a uniform mechanism for implementing most of the new structuring techniques, and at the same time are no harder to implement than normal actions. Thus this proposal is of practical importance. The suitability of new structuring techniques will be demonstrated by considering a number of applications. It will be shown that the proposed techniques provide natural tools for composing distributed applications.