Scalable and adaptive log manager in distributed systems

Huan Zhou, Weining Qian, Xuan Zhou, Qiwen Dong, Aoying Zhou, Wenrong Tan

Abstract: On-line transaction processing (OLTP) systems rely on transaction logging and quorum-based consensus protocol to guarantee durability, high availability and strong consistency. This makes the log manager a key component of distributed database management systems (DDBMSs). The leader of DDBMSs commonly adopts a centralized logging method to writing log entries into a stable storage device and uses a constant log replication strategy to periodically synchronize its state to followers. With the advent of new hardware and high parallelism of transaction processing, the traditional centralized design of logging limits scalability, and the constant trigger condition of replication can not always maintain optimal performance under dynamic workloads.