Transient versioning for consistency and concurrency in client-server systems

Synchronization and cache consistency limit the performance of data-shipping client-server systems. Both the problems arise because existing methods treat cached data as replicated data. The paper proposes a new method using transient versioning concepts to reduce the effect of these problems. Copies of data in different client caches are treated as different versions of the data. Multiple versions reduce cache consistency overhead since updating a data page creates a new version and does not require invalidating copies of that page in other caches. The transient versions also increase concurrency by allowing multiple readers and one writer to simultaneously access the same page. Simulation experiments show that this method performs better than the existing methods in different environments and is easily adaptable to mixed and/or changing workloads