Inconsistency resolution: Versioning

• Overview
• Vector Clock Technique

Overview

Versioning means treating each data modification as a new immutable version of data. For resolving inconsistency issues, we need a versioning system that can detrect conflicts and reconcile them. A vector clock is a common technique to solve this problem.

Vector Clock Technique

A vector clock is a [server, version] pair associated with a data item. It can be used to check if one version preceeds, succeeds, or in conflict with others.

Assume a vector clock is represented by D([S1, v1], [S2, v2], ..., [Sn, vn]), where D is a data item, v1 is a version counter, and s1 is a server number, etc. If data item D is written to server Si, the system must perform one of the following tasks:

• Increment vi if [Si, vi] exists.
• Otherwise, create a new entry [Si, 1].

1. A client writes a data item D1 to the system, and the write is handled by server Sx, which now has the vector clock D1[(Sx, 1)].

2. Another client reads the latest D1, updates it to D2, and writes it back. D2 descends from D1 so it overwrites D1. Assume the write is handled by the same server Sx, which now has the vector clock D2([Sx, 2]).

3. Another clients reads the latest D2, updates it to D3, and writes it back. Assume the write is handled by server Sy, which now has vector clock D3([Sx, 2], [Sy, 1]).

4. Another client reads the latest D2, updates it to D4, and writes it back. Assume the write is handled by server Sz, which now has D4([Sx, 2], [Sz, 1]).

5. When another client reads D3 and D4, it discovers a conflict, which is caused by data item D2 being modified by both Sy and Sz. The conflict is resolved by the client and updated data is sent to the server. Assume the write is handled by Sx, which now has D5([Sx, 3], [Sy, 1], [Sz, 1]).

Even though vector clocks can resolve conflicts, there are two notable downsides:

• Vector clocks add complexity to the client because it needs to implement conflict resolution logic.

• Second, the [server: version] pairs in the vector clock could grow rapidly. A potential fix is to set a treshold for the length, and if it exceeds it, the oldest pairs are removed. This can lead to inefficiencies in reconciliation because the descendant relationship cannot be determined accurately.

Based on Dynamo paper, Amazon has not yet encountered this second problem in production; therefore, it is probably an acceptable solution for most companies.

Conflict detection

Using vector clocks, it is easy to tell that a version X is an ancestor (i.e, no conflict) of version Y if the version counters for each participant in the vector clock of Y is greater than or equal to the ones in version X. For example, the vector clock D([s0, 1], [s1, 1]) is an ancestor of D([s0, 1]).

Similarly, you can tell that a version X is a sibiling (i.e., a conflict exists) of Y if there is any participant in Y’s vector clock who has both a counter that is greater, and another one that is less than its corresponding counter in X. For example, the following two vectors indicate there is a conflict: D([s0, 1], [s1, 2]) and D([s0, 2], [s1, 1]).