STCP: Simple Transaction Commit Protocol for Wireless Sensor Networks

Abstract

To effectively ensure data consistency is a challenge in today's wireless sensor network (WSN) applications. This paper, based on the simplification of traditional transaction processing from database management system (DBMS), puts forward the concepts of update transaction and query transaction within the context of WSNs and proposes a novel transaction processing protocol, the simple transaction commit protocol (STCP), for WSN systems. In STCP, the base station, as coordinator, is responsible for initializing a transaction and broadcasting the transaction to participant nodes. The participants, on the other hand, commit the transaction according to a timer, which enables the participants to send acknowledgment or conflict messages to the base station at a regular time interval. The transactions suspended by conflict are awakened through a triggering mechanism. Compared to the traditional protocols of distributed systems, STCP, which adapts better to the characteristics and requirements of WSNs, can effectively and efficiently ensure data consistency in WSN systems.