Third USENIX Conference on Object-Oriented Technologies (COOTS), 1997
Gold Rush: Mobile Transaction Middleware with Java-Object Replication
Maria A. Butrico, Henry Chang, Anthony Cocchi, Norman H. Cohen, Dennis G. Shea, Stephen E. Smith
IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center
P.O. Box 218
Yorktown Heights, NY 10598
Abstract
Gold Rush is middleware supporting the writing of Java applications that reside on
an intermittently connected mobile client device and access an enterprise database on a central
server. While the client is connected to the central server, objects constructed from database
entities can be cached in a persistent store on the client. While the client is disconnected, these
entities can be manipulated within transactions that are logged on the client. Upon reconnection,
the client application can replay these logged transactions to the server, modifying the database.
A replayed transaction is checked for conflicts with other database updates that have occurred
since the client obtained the input data for the transaction, and the client is notified when such a
conflict arises. Communication between the client and the server is optimized to economize the
use of a slow or expensive connection such as a radio link.
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