TROM: A Transactional Replicated Object Memory

This paper presents transactional replication, a novel approach for replicating distributed objects. It uses non-blocking synchronisation techniques to realise software transactional memory for ensuring replica consistency. Unlike traditional passive object replication, which executes requests on a single primary, our approach allows using an arbitrary replica to execute a client request. Fine-grained synchronisation mechanisms ensure consistency between the replicas. This way, the computational load can be equally distributed on all replicas. Unlike active object replication, our approach does not offer redundant execution of requests. Nevertheless, it enables a fast reaction to replica failures in most situations.