The interplay between granularity, performance and availability in a replicated Linda tuple space

Replication is a common method for increasing the availability of data in a distributed environment. The authors' interest is in the application of replication techniques in the domain of parallel processing. They explore the issues concerning degree of replication and granularity in the context of a distributed and highly available Linda tuple space. In particular, they study the performance effects of varying the number of replicas and the granularities of replication and concurrency control. Traditionally, when using replication in databases, the granularity of replication and that of concurrency control have been the same (at the file level (D.K. Gifford, 1979), for example). This is not an inherent requirement however. The authors show by detailed simulation of a replicated Linda tuple space that it is useful to separate the two granularities and that it is an important design issue especially in parallel processing systems.<>