Entity Types

Examples of entities which see a consistent view include a process, a user id, a machine, a group of processes etc.

This hierachy shows entities subdivided as either transient/persistent entities or simple/complex entities. It is simpler to provide consistent views to transient entities like a process, since less consistency state has to be maintained. Similarly it is easier to guarantee consistency for simple or centralized entities which access data using a single thread of operation or from a single machine.

The algorithms for implementing view consistency thus strongly depend on the type of entity for which we provide consistency of data.