Distributed concurrency control distributes the responsibility for maintaining file consistency across a network, preventing inconsistencies caused by multiple users accessing files simultaneously. Two-phase strong strict blocking is a common method, but can cause memory cannibalization and slow down networks.
Distributed concurrency control is a strategy that distributes the responsibility for concurrency control across an entire network. Concurrency refers to all computers running the same version of the same files. Once computers are networked, concurrency issues (problems with keeping all files on the network identical for all users) come to the fore, as multiple users can have simultaneous access to any authorized file and folder on the network. system. Without forcing concurrency, these files could easily become inconsistent from one computer to another as users change and manipulate data in real time, resulting in everyone quickly losing the ability to rely on network files when changes are made. Concurrency control keeps files consistent across the network, preventing this problem.
The main benefit of distributed concurrency control is that it distributes the workload for concurrency problems across multiple computers, reducing the overhead on each. Without distributed concurrency control, maintaining concurrency on a network could easily become a full-time job for a single computer, making it useless for anything else. With distributed concurrency control, each computer on the network can help share the workload, ensuring that end users can still use the terminals for other network activities.
Two-phase strong strict blocking is one of the most common types of distributed concurrency control. In a strong strict two-phase blocking, as soon as a single network file is accessed, it is blocked for both read and write operations until the access ends. This means that only one user on the network can edit a file at a time, making file simultaneity on the network impossible. Once the end user saves changes to the file or exits the file altogether, the locks are removed, allowing another system user to manage the file again.
One of the major drawbacks of a strong strict two-phase block is the additional overhead it places on network resources. Each file under each user must be marked by the network as “locked” and this information must be kept in memory until the lock ends. Overall, with hundreds of end users running hundreds of files simultaneously, this can easily cannibalize a significant portion of the memory on the network. This excessive memory cannibalization can slow down networks with inefficient or outdated hardware designs.
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