Database replication for the mobile era Antoni Wolski   View Paper (PDF)   Return to Advanced Technology Seminars Abstract Recent advances in mobile computing have spurred new interests in data replication. The techniques for data replication originated in early 80's, in the form of snapshots and materialized views, to improve performance of database queries. Later, the efforts were driven by the urge to improve data availability. However, in the mobile world and other weakly connected environments, data replication is really indispensable--it fuels the mobile applications. The seminar starts with a historical review of data distribution models an copy consistency models. Eager (synchronous) and lazy (asynchronous) replication methods are introduced. Scalability analysis is given. Specific requirements of weakly connected environments are exposed, and concepts of data dissemination, recharging and caching are presented. Approaches to maintaining various levels of data consistency in the context of lazy methods are reviewed. Ways to address the problems of data currency and reliability, context and location awareness, and replication transparency are discussed. A survey of commercial data replication products is given. Latest research efforts in the area are reported. In the conclusion, promising research issues are suggested for study. DiSC'03 © 2003 Association for Computing Machinery