Distributed Systems

Core distributed systems topics, for example consistency, availability and so on.

Leases: An efficient fault-tolerant mechanism for distributed file cache consistency

~ Adrian Colyer ~ 2 Comments
Leases: An efficient fault-tolerant mechanism for distributed file cache consistency - Gray & Cheriton 1989 This paper introduced the leasing model for distributed systems. Leases are conceptually very straightforward and bring a surprising number of benefits for such a simple mechanism. Also in this paper you'll find the simple formulas that can help you figure ... Continue Reading

Improving Cloud Service Resilience using Brownout-aware Load Balancing

~ Adrian Colyer ~ 4 Comments
Improving Cloud Service Resilience using Brownout-aware Load Balancing - Klein et al 2014 This is what the previous two #themorningpaper selections have been building to. What happens when you apply brownout techniques to a set of load-balanced servers? We study how to extend the classical cloud service architecture composed of a load-balancer and replicas with ... Continue Reading

Consistency, Availability, and Convergence

~ Adrian Colyer ~ 3 Comments
Consistency, Availability, and Convergence - Mahajan, Alvisi, and Dahlin, 2014 We've seen in earlier papers that the classic definition of eventual consistency allows some unhelpful models such as all nodes becoming consistent due to returning a constant value. Mahajan et al. close these loopholes with a definition of convergence that matches our commonsense expectations. Then ... Continue Reading