AIDA-based real-time fault-tolerant broadcast disks

Abstract

The proliferation of mobile computers and wireless networks requires the design of future distributed real-time applications to recognize and deal with the significant asymmetry between downstream and upstream communication capacities, and the significant disparity between server and client storage capacities. Zdonik et al. (1994) have proposed the use of broadcast disks as a scalable mechanism to deal with this problem. In this paper, we propose a new broadcast disks protocol, based on our Adaptive Information Dispersal Algorithm (AIDA). Our protocol is different from previous ones in that it improves both timeliness and fault tolerance, while allowing for a finer control of multiplexing of prioritized data. We start with a general introduction to broadcast disks. Next, we propose broadcast disk organizations that are suitable for real-time applications. Next, we present AIDA and show its fault-tolerance properties. We conclude with the description and analysis of AIDA-based broadcast disk organizations that achieve both timeliness and fault-tolerance, while preserving downstream communication capacity.