Global Commitment in Multidatabase Systems

Won Kim UniSQL, Inc. 9390 Research Blvd. Austin, TX 78759 In this paper, we investigate the reliability aspects of transaction processing in multidatabase systems from a formal point of view. We define a new correctness notion called global commitment (GC) for reliable transaction processing in a multidatabase environment in which local DBMSs may not support the prepared state of the two phase commitment protocol. A multidatabase transaction management that produces a globally committable history can guarantee the commitment of global (multi-site) transactions without violating the local autonomy requirements, even in the presence of transaction and system failures. The GC notion, together with serializability and recoverability notions, are used as the correctness criteria for reliable transaction processing in multidatabase systems.