Management of a remote backup copy for disaster recovery

ABSTRACT

A remote backup database system tracks the state of a primary system, taking over transaction processing when disaster hits the primary site. The primary and backup sites are physically isolated so that failures at one site are unlikely to propogate to the other. For correctness, the execution schedule at the backup must be equivalent to that at the primary. When the primary and backup sites contain a single processor, it is easy to achieve this property. However, this is harder to do when each site contains multiple processors and sites are connected via multiple communication lines. We present an efficient transaction processing mechanism for multiprocessor systems that guarantees this and other important properties. We also present a database initialization algorithm that copies the database to a backup site while transactions are being processed.

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  C. Computer Systems Organization
  C.2 COMPUTER-COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
      C.2.4 Distributed Systems
          Subjects: Distributed databases

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.4 OPERATING SYSTEMS
      D.4.5 Reliability
          Subjects: Backup procedures

  H. Information Systems
  H.2 DATABASE MANAGEMENT
      H.2.4 Systems
          Subjects: Transaction processing
      H.2.7 Database Administration
          Subjects: Logging and recovery

General Terms:
Algorithms, Reliability

Keywords:
database initialization, hot spare, hot standby, remote backup