From: gwtmp01@...
Date: 2005-07-02T04:05:04+09:00
Subject: Re: Fault Tolerant DRb?


On Jul 1, 2005, at 12:25 PM, Kirk Haines wrote:
> Assume you are using a DRb service for....something.  It doesn't  
> matter what.
> The case is the same whether one is accessing an array via DRb or a  
> Rinda
> Ring.  Is there some reasonably easy way of making a service work  
> in a fault
> tolerant way?

You might want to take a look at some of the software and ideas at
http://www.cse.cuhk.edu.hk/~xychen/GroupCS/gcs.htm

This page has a great summary of toolkits that implement
"process group communication" or "virtual synchrony".  A variety of  
toolkits
have evolved and been released in various forms.  While I don't know  
of any
ruby implementation or wrapper for these ideas/software it would be a  
great
project.

The goal of process group communication is to send a series of  
messages to a
named group of recipients and ensure that every member of the group  
receives
the messages in a globally consistent order in the presence of  
communication
and/or hardware failures.  From this foundation you can build a  
variety of
fault tolerant systems.


Gary Wright