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Abstract

This paper proposes a novel distributed algorithm for synchronizing group operations which maintain consistency of shared docu ments in cooperative editing environments In the proposed algorithm dependent operations are closely synchronized so that they are executed in the same causal order at all sites Independent operations are executed asynchronously as soon as they arrive In particular local editing oper ations can be executed immediately, leading to good responsiveness Moreover despite the possible out-of-total-order execution of independent group operations, a totally ordered consistent view of the shared documents is maintained at all sites when the system is at quiescent Each site makes decisions on operation ordering and synchronization based on its local status and piggybacked information in incoming requests, and no centralized coordinator or locks are used Therefore the algorithm is fully distributed without a single point of failure or performance bottle neck Preliminary simulation and experimentation have shown that the basic mechanisms used in our algorithm are correct effective and effi cient

Keywords

cooperative editing concurrency control distributed algorithm CSCW

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Distributed Synchronization of Group Operations in Cooperative Editing Environments

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