Envelope Transaction Mechanism for A Cluster of Peers

Abstract

A new approach for mobile transaction processing is presented in a cluster of peers. A cluster is a dynamic collection of mobile hosts called peers and are clustered around a single mobile host called a centroid to form a temporary work group for processing and exchanging information. All peers are connected to the centroid using a short range wireless network. All peers and the centroid are members of a peer connected set. The centroid is chosen in such a way that it has a strong connection to the mobile support station. After collecting data from a server, the centroid is free to disconnect from the server and ready to create its own cluster of peers. To process various transactions at the centroid, a dynamically configurable data processing space is created called the envelope repository. Processed data is kept at a private work space of the centroid in an envelope and brought to the envelope repository whenever required. A peer initiates a jumping transaction to fetch data objects to the centroid. The jumping transaction initiates an envelope transaction to acquire the necessary locks on data objects at envelope repository. After getting the locks, intension transaction processes the data objects to give the result stored in an envelope. Envelope intension write protocol is designed to make jumping transactions globally serialized.