Locking without requesting a lock: A consistency maintenance mechanism in Internet-based real-time group editors

Consistency maintenance is an important issue in groupware systems. This article proposes an exclusive version locking scheme for consistency maintenance in Internet-based real-time collaborative editing environments. With this scheme, it is not necessary to propagate lock requests over the network. Locks will be automatically enforced by the system in a distributed way. The scheme supports concurrent editing on the same object by multi-versioning. Individual users’ concurrent conflicting intentions are thus accommodated in different versions. Meanwhile, each version is guaranteed to be exclusively locked by one user such that conflict resolution processes among users can be facilitated. Several version locking protocols are also defined to preserve the atomicity of a user's multiple intentions on the same object. The scheme and protocols have been implemented in a research prototype called POLO.     

协同图形图像编辑系统中对象锁与区域锁的并行

在分布式协同编辑系统中,为了防止并行操作中出现冲突,常常用到加锁的机制.分布式协同图形图像编辑系统是协同系统中一个特殊的类,因此有特殊的加锁方式.本文提出一种新的不但能够给对象加锁,而且能够给区域加锁的锁机制.在这种锁机制下,用户可以自由地选择给一个图案对象加锁或者给一个工作区域加锁.这是一种细粒度和粗粒度的结合,既有利于减少加锁时系统的负载,又有利于方便用户的操作.这个机制已经应用在我们的CoDesign系统.     

相对位置乐观锁机制及在协同编辑中的应用

为了满足实时协同编辑对快速响应、无约束协作的要求，提出了一种基于相对位置的乐观锁机制并发控制算法．该算法引入了编辑锁和读锁，并对加锁的起始位置和编辑操作位置用相对位置表示，当锁申请成功将写进锁表或者操作发送到各协作结点时，再把它们转换成绝对位置，加锁的粒度可根据编者的需要任意选择，编者在加锁请求获得确认前，可预先进行编辑操作．应用实例表明：该算法既保证了数据维护的一致性，又具有快速响应性．     

集成用户可定制锁和操作转换的并发控制方法

锁是一种用于分布计算和数据库系统的传统的并发控制方法,它通过将对共享对象的修改访问权在某一时间内授予唯一的访问者,以使对共享对象的访问得以串行化;操作转换方法是一种用于实时协同系统中一致性维护的方法。这两种方法均不能完全解决数据一致性问题。论述了锁机制和操作转换在一致性维护中的互补关系,提出了一种用户可定制的锁方法,并将该锁方法与操作转换结合起来应用于全复制式的协同环境中。用户可定制的锁机制集成操作转换方法具有可靠性高、响应速度快和非阻塞的特点;用户动态定制加锁粒度可以保证最大程度的并发性。该方法有效地解决了实时群件系统中一般的一致性问题和特定上下文的一致性问题。     

A Multi-Versioning Scheme for Intention Preservation in Collaborative Editing Systems*

Although the multi-version approach to consistency maintenance has been widely discussed and implemented in database systems, version control systems, and asynchronous groupware systems, its potential in real-time groupware systems is largely unexplored. Intention preservation is an important aspect of consistency maintenance in real-time collaborative editing systems, where multiple users cooperate with each other by concurrently editing the same document. The multi-version approach is supposed to be able to preserve individual users’ concurrent conflicting intentions. In this article, we propose a new multi-versioning scheme that can preserve not only concurrent conflicting intentions but also contextual intentions while achieving convergence of the document under editing. By extending an existing multi-versioning scheme to a general one that specifies the conditions for convergence, we decouple the discussion of convergence from that of intention preservation. By constraining the general scheme, we arrive at the novel scheme that guarantees to preserve users’ intentions. The correctness of the scheme has been formally verified. The design of an algorithm for consistent version composition and identification has been discussed in detail.     

A group Undo/Redo method in 3D collaborative modeling systems with performance evaluation

Undo/Redo is an indispensable function in 3D collaborative modeling systems where a single mistake conducted by one user is propagated to all participants. Both intention preservation and consistency maintenance should be satisfied when applying group Undo/Redo. Besides, fast local responsiveness and timely group awareness are accepted performance metrics in interactive systems. In this paper, we contribute a novel group Undo/Redo mechanism for 3D collaborative modeling systems to support the “any time, any where” Undo/Redo. Response time will be shortened noticeably with a Model State Stream kept on each collaborative site. In the case of concurrent Undo/Redo, an Undo State Vector is proposed to ensure the Undo/Redo intention preservation and model consistency maintenance. Furthermore, the paper studies the performance of the algorithm including the worst, best and average cases with theoretical analyses. Our experiments show that responsive time is actually depending on a number of factors such as size of the history buffer, execution time for a single modeling operation.     

基于图形对象的一致性维护问题的研究

针对实时协同图形编辑系统中一致性维护关键问题,提出了一种基于图形对象的并发控制算法。该算法扩展了面向文本编辑的分布式操作转换dOPT算法,满足图形对象属性级上数据一致性维护,同时通过预定义图形对象间的关联关系和位置属性约束规则,进行操作语义维护管理,使得实时协同图形编辑系统的一致性维护更为有效和完备。     

Remote maintenance of control system performance over the Internet

The Internet provides a significant benefit for the remote maintenance and fault diagnosis of various devices and plants. One such example is the UK's distributed aircraft maintenance environment (DAME) (www.cs.york.ac.uk/dame), which provides a generic test bed introduction for distributed diagnostics based on Grid-enabled technologies. This paper focuses on developing a systematic method for the design of such a remote maintenance systems specifically for process control systems. Design issues of Internet-based remote maintenance systems for process control such as that proposed here include control performance assessment, fault detection, control performance maintenance, and heterogeneous data transfer over the Internet. A back- and front-end architecture is proposed, in which all the heavy calculations are carried out locally. Light data and the characteristics of any heavy data are sent to the front-end located on the remote server for consideration by remote experts. The remote maintenance system is illustrated by reference to the implementation in a process control rig.     

Integrated and distributed computational support for building performance evaluation

This paper reports on the progress of the SEMPER prototype 2 (S2) project. This is an ongoing effort toward an Internet-based environment for distributed collaborative performance-based building design and evaluation. A user can access the S2 system regardless of hardware, operating system or location on a network. Geographically distributed users can generate and edit building models via a platform-independent user interface. These building models can then be made subject to concurrent analysis by multiple simulation applications running on remote servers. Persistent storage is provided for project data and evaluation results. Designers using the system have access to multiple libraries with semantic building information.     

Context-Based Operational Transformation in Distributed Collaborative Editing Systems

Operational Transformation (OT) is a consistency maintenance technique for collaborative editing systems—a special class of distributed applications for supporting human-computer-human interaction and collaboration over communication networks. The theory of causality has been the foundation of all prior OT systems, but it is inadequate to meet essential OT requirements in functionality and correctness. In this paper, we analyze the limitation of the causality theory, propose a novel theory of operation context as the new foundation for OT systems, and present a new OT algorithm—Context-based OT (COT)—which provides uniform and efficient solutions to both consistency maintenance and undo problems. The COT algorithm has been implemented and used for supporting a range of novel collaborative applications. The context theory and context vectors are potentially applicable to other distributed computing applications.     

实时协同位图编辑系统中不一致性问题研究

实时协同编辑系统有着广泛的应用前景,然而其冲突性操作导致众多结果不一致,解决一致性问题已成为设计与实现实时协同系统的关键性问题。该文基于对分布式系统采用的各种并发控制和一致性维持模型的比较,分析协同编辑中的三种不一致性问题、一致性模型,并研究相应的解决技术,提出了一种新的基于复制结构的协同位图编辑系统一致性维持模型。     

Efficient data distribution in a Web server farm

High-performance Web sites rely on Web server `farms', hundreds of computers serving the same content, for scalability, reliability, and low-latency access to Internet content. Deploying these scalable farms typically requires the power of distributed or clustered file systems. Building Web server farms on file systems complements hierarchical proxy caching. Proxy caching replicates Web content throughout the Internet, thereby reducing latency from network delays and off-loading traffic from the primary servers. Web server farms scale resources at a single site, reducing latency from queuing delays. Both technologies are essential when building a high-performance infrastructure for content delivery. The authors present a cache consistency model and locking protocol customized for file systems that are used as scalable infrastructure for Web server farms. The protocol takes advantage of the Web's relaxed consistency semantics to reduce latencies and network overhead. Our hybrid approach preserves strong consistency for concurrent write sharing with time-based consistency and push caching for readers (Web servers). Using simulation, we compare our approach to the Andrew file system and the sequential consistency file system protocols we propose to replace     

同步协同设计中并发控制的研究

为解决协同设计过程中存在的数据一致性不高、数据传输量大、实时性差等问题,通过分析分布式CSCW环境中并发控制的各种方法,并根据同步协同设计特点和用户操作意愿,设计了并发控制网络模型.在该模型中,计算数据传输的最小延时确定主控站点,提出了基于事务优先权的混合并发控制策略,以保证协同用户在操作过程中的并发率.实例证明,以上措施的实现保证用户自由共享资源,提高了并发控制的实时性和数据的一致性.     

Web协同应用中基于文档划分的一致性维护模型

针对已有的Web协同应用中的一致性维护方法会带来严重的服务器耗费问题,提出了一种基于文档划分的一致性维护模型。该模型在操作转换算法SLOT(symmetric linear operational transformation)的基础上引入文档划分的思想。从降低服务器通信和内存耗费的角度出发,结合用户数量和操作频率的变化,给出一种动态的文档划分策略及其实现算法。仿真实验结果表明,该模型可以有效地降低大规模协同应用中服务器的通信和内存耗费。     

面向图形对象的协同编辑系统的并发操作冲突检测

协同者的并发操作的冲突是引发不一致的主要原因，因而并发操作的冲突判别则是系统开发的一个重要的方面．本文分析了基于图形对象的协同编辑系统的并发操作冲突的机理，给出了操作命令的一般表示方法，提出一个通用的基于该描述的冲突判别推理方法，并基于不同领域知识将该方法用于二维绘图系统和三维产品特征建模系统中的并发操作冲突的分析，实验结果表明该方法是可以适合不同协同系统的通用方法．     

实时图案协同设计中冲突问题的研究

在Internet环境中,允许多个用户同时对同一图案的任意绘图区进行设计是图案协同设计系统应满足的基本要求．然而不同设计者在协同设计过程中由于设计意图的不同而引起的操作冲突是不可避免的,因此冲突问题是图案协同设计系统的关键问题之一．着重讨论了冲突的定义,冲突的多种避免方式,提出了高效的冲突检测算法和一种能保护用户协同设计意图的冲突解决方法——基于冲突操作锁定的冲突解决方法．这些方法和算法的实现使得在分布式计算环境下协同设计的冲突问题得到了较完善的解决．     

实时协同设计系统中同步过程的研究

作为一类支持人机交互的分布式系统,实时协同设计系统允许多个用户通过网络同步的对同一文档进行编辑.实时性、分布式、用户操作无限制是该系统的3个重要要求,但由于用户的同步操作和网络传输延迟的存在,协同过程中容易产生各种不同步的现象.对由于站点迟到或者非正常退出协同设计系统而引起的同步性问题进行了研究,提出了同步过程,包括主控站点发送同步队列、状态矢量轮询、缺少操作补齐等步骤,解决了站点迟到或非正常退出系统而引起的同步性问题.     

基于文档目录树的WWW文档协同写作机制

协同写作是ＣＳＣＷ的一个重要研究领域。文中针对ＷＷＷ文档的协同写作提出了一种文档目录树技术,不权为ＷＷＷ文档扩充了表示其全局结构的层次式目录结构,还为文档的分工协作写作提供了良好的数据组织结构。文中详细讨论了基于文档目录树结构对一个ＷＷＷ文档进行协同写作时的协同机制,研究了多用户界面设计、协作方式、以及使用“目录路径锁定法”实现的并发控制等主要技术。     

A user requirement driven framework for collaborative design knowledge management

In today’s competitive global marketplace and knowledge-based economy, user requirement becomes an important input information for enterprises to develop new product and a critical factor to drive product collaborative design evolution. Meanwhile, there remains no consensus on how best to support knowledge activities and significant challenges to establishing design information management facing to rapid collaborative product development with dynamic user requirement. This paper introduces solutions for designer to deal with dynamic user requirement information through requirement evaluation and prediction method. In this study, we propose a user requirements-oriented knowledge management concept that is based on a four level hierarchy map model with special regard to knowledge collaboration and information communication. Furthermore, a novel distributed concurrent and interactive user requirement database was constructed, and the framework driven by user requirement was put forward to support collaborative design knowledge management. Finally, the service robot design project of a start-up company is used as a case study to explain the implementation of proposed framework.     

基于多版本的对象标识与垃圾收集算法

研究与设计全复制结构的实时协同编辑系统的关键问题之一是多个复制数据视图的一致性 ,其中操作意愿保证是一致性维护的根本 .分析了基于多版本的对象标识问题 ,提出一个对象标识模型 ,并针对多版本环境对冲突定义进行了修改 ;采用操作列表 OL取代历史缓冲区 HB,维护对象版本上执行过的所有操作 ,并进一步分析了操作列表的垃圾收集算法 .本文提出的算法都得到实例验证