A technique for constructing highly available services (Q1109559)

This paper describes a general method for constructing a highly available service for use in a distributed system. It gives a specific implementation of the method and proves the implementation correct. The service consists of replicas that reside at several different locations in a network. It presents its clients with a consistent view of its state, but the view may contain old information. Clients can indicate how recent the information must be. The method can be used in applications satisfying certain semantic constraints. For applications that can use it, the method performs better than other replication techniques.