Protocols for Committing Mobile Transactions

Mobile computing has attracted attention of intensive researches during the recent years. Many papers revisit the conventional implementation of distributed computing paradigms for use in this new environment. A key paradigm of the transaction processing is the transaction commitment. A commitment mechanism such as Two Phases Commit (2PC) protocol, a fundamental asset of transactional technology (and its variants), ensures consistent effects of a distributed transaction. This paper surveys the solutions proposed for mobile transaction commitment and outlines how the conventional commit protocols are revisited in order to fit the needs of a mobile environment. The different approaches try to deal with the slow and unreliable wireless links, the lightweight devices and their limited resources, the frequent disconnections and the movement of mobile devices.