KB-HYDRO

Abstract

In this paper we describe a heterogeneous knowledge base management system which is being designed and developed at North Dakota State University with support from IBM Rochester, MN. The system is called KB-HYDRO. It will connect a variety of autonomous local database systems as well as one or more knowledge base systems into one unified system. We show how global serializability and atomic commitment can be attained in KB-HYDRO. Each local system is assumed to be an off-the-shelf, binary-licensed system. KBHYDRO achieves global serializability using a set of objects based on the ROLL (Request Order Linked List) object developed in ([PER89], [PER91a]). ROLL is based on the general Serialization Graph Test (SGT) methodology [BER87], and provides freedom from idle-wait, deadlock, livelock and restart. KB-HYDRO uses attribute level granularity in its access control mechanism. This approach reduces conflicts substantially. Atomic commitment is provided, based on TwoPhase Commit.