Applications of transaction processing for session management in multi-media information networks

Session management of complex multimedia calls a network-provided transaction-oriented service to a client is discussed. The authors suggest a set of goal-oriented policies that modify the all-or-nothing transaction semantics inherent in traditional transaction processing to accommodate more optimistic commit protocols that take corrective actions later if resources are found to be in inconsistent states. The use of semantics-based and nested transactions in allocating network resources is also suggested. These modifications are expected to improve overall resource utilization and reduce latency