Conflict resolution and reconciliation in disconnected databases

Abstract

As mobile computing devices become more and more popular, mobile databases have started gaining popularity. An important feature of these database systems is their ability to allow optimistic replication of data by providing disconnected mobile devices with the ability to perform local updates. The key problem to this approach is the reconciliation problem, i.e. the problem of serializing potentially conflicting updates from disconnected clients on all replicas of the database. Reconciliation of conflicting updates is a fundamental problem for mobile databases where disconnected updates are allowed. We examine some choices for providing solutions to the reconciliation problem. We also describe a simple but illustrative sample application. Finally we present our conclusions.