Distributed Referential Integrity Across Multiple Servers
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional systems face challenges in maintaining referential integrity across multiple server systems, as they struggle to ensure consistency in data replication without sacrificing performance and scalability, often relying on single machine databases that reach scalability and performance limits quickly.
Innovation Solution
A system and method that transmit action commands with operation statements to multiple servers to create, update, or delete referential relationships, including undo operations, ensuring that all operations succeed or fail together, thereby maintaining referential integrity across servers without relying on traditional single machine databases.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If conventional relational databases are used to ensure referential integrity, then data consistency is maintained, but scalability and performance are limited
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the referential integrity management function into separate components distributed across multiple servers. Instead of a centralized database, each server maintains local data with embedded integrity checks, allowing the system to scale horizontally while maintaining data consistency through segmented responsibility.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary mechanism in the form of distributed transactions and coordination protocols that mediate between multiple servers to maintain referential integrity. This intermediary layer enables consistency without requiring a single centralized database, thus improving scalability.
2Reliability
If singleton processes are used in relational databases to prevent race conditions, then referential integrity is ensured, but processing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent enables each server to perform self-service integrity checks locally rather than relying on centralized singleton processes. Each server independently validates referential constraints using local data and cached information, eliminating the need for expensive centralized coordination while maintaining integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements preliminary action by pre-computing and caching integrity validation rules and reference data on each server. This allows servers to perform fast local validation without needing to query centralized database processes, reducing processing costs while ensuring referential integrity.
3Productivity
If data is replicated across multiple servers, then availability and scalability are improved, but consistency between replicas deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements feedback mechanisms where servers continuously monitor and report their data state to the distributed system. This feedback enables automatic detection and resolution of consistency issues across replicas, maintaining data stability while allowing scalable distribution of data across multiple servers.
Data Source
AI summary
Systems and methods including one or more processing modules and one or more non-transitory storage modules storing computing instructions configured to run on the one or more processing modules and perform acts of transmitting an action command to each of a first server and a second server, the action command comprising one or more operation statements, transmitting an undo operation statement to each of the first server and the second server with each of the one or more operation statements, and receiving a fail notification from the second server indicating that an action associated with the action command has failed if one of the operation statements has failed on the second server. The operation statements can include instructions to create, modify, or delete a referential relationship. The undo operation statements can include instructions to undo operations associated with the operation statements.