Replica Update Propagation for Grid Data Resources

Data replication is a well established concept in the grid community to increase data availability and fault-tolerance in the grid environment However, there is a lack of software tools for maintaining the consistency among distributed data resources suitable for the heterogeneous nature of the grid. In this paper, we try to address this gap by introducing service for data update propagation among distributed data replicas. Our replica update service provides basic functionality for higher level grid consistency services and virtualizes the underlying data resources. We discuss the possibility of integration of replica update service with legacy software, using legacy software functionality and, increasing the data availability by means of data replication