Using an object-oriented framework to construct wide-area group communication mechanisms

Many wide-area distributed applications, including distributed databases, can be implemented using a group communication mechanism. We have developed a family of weak-consistency group communication mechanisms, based on the timestamped anti-entropy communication protocol, that provides the scalability and fault-tolerance needed by wide-area systems. We discuss an object-oriented framework for constructing this kind of group communication mechanism, and how its components can be selected to take advantage of specific application semantics. We examine several design choices that we made in building two very different wide-area distributed database applications, and how this framework led to simple, efficient implementations in both systems