Dropping ACID: Architecting with Eventual Consistency in the Cloud

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

11:30 AM - 12:15 PM

Level:

Technical - Introductory

It's impossible for any distributed computer system to simultaneously guarantee immediate consistency, availability, and partition tolerance. Most enterprise DBMSs are inherently partition intolerant, thus allowing for ACID transactionality. However, Cloud Computing environments must be partition tolerant in order to achieve the elasticity benefit so important to the Cloud. Highly available Cloud applications must therefore forego immediate data consistency, and with it, ACID. What's left? BASE: Basic availability, soft state, and eventual consistency.

This session will explore how eventual data consistency affects architecting -- and rearchitecting -- applications for a Cloud environment. We'll discard the common misconception that the Cloud is a "virtual server in the sky," and explore how architects must think differently about architecting for Cloud environments vs. traditional on-premise computing.

Attendees of this session will:

Get a solid grounding in the CAP theorem and BASE
Understand the special data requirements Cloud Computing presents when architecting applications
Think differently about basic concepts like transactionality and consistency

Jason Bloomberg is President of ZapThink, a Dovel Technologies Company. He is a global thought leader in the areas of Cloud Computing, Enterprise Architecture, and Service-Oriented Architecture. He created the Licensed ZapThink Architect (LZA) SOA course and associated credential, and runs the LZA course as well as his Cloud Computing for Architects course around the world. He is a frequent conference speaker and prolific writer, including as an analyst for GigaOM and blogger for DevX. Mr. Bloomberg has a diverse background in eBusiness technology management and industry analysis, including serving as a senior analyst in IDC’s eBusiness Advisory group, as well as holding eBusiness management positions at USWeb/CKS (later marchFIRST) and WaveBend Solutions (now Hitachi Consulting). He also co-authored the books XML and Web Services Unleashed (SAMS Publishing, 2002), and Web Page Scripting Techniques (Hayden Books, 1996).