The evolution of the Arjuna transaction processing system. (13th September 2021)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Little, Mark C.; Shrivastava, Santosh K.
• Other Names: Gill Sukhpal Singh guestEditor.; Vinuesa Ricardo guestEditor.; Balasubramanian Venki guestEditor.; Ghosh Soumya K. guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: Software, practice & experience. Volume 52:Number 4(2022)
• Page Start: 1035
• Page End: 1064
• Publication Date: 2021-09-13
• Subjects: client‐server architectures -- cloud computing -- object oriented systems -- transaction processing; Computer software -- Periodicals; Computer programming -- Periodicals; Computer programs -- Periodicals; 005.3
• DOI: 10.1002/spe.3026
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0038-0644

Abstract

Abstract: The Arjuna transaction processing system began life in the mid‐1980s as an academic research project to examine the use of object‐oriented techniques in the development of fault‐tolerant distributed systems. Thirty‐five years later, and available in open source form, it forms an integral part of various middleware products from Red Hat where it is used to provide ACID as well as non‐ACID transaction services. This journey from an academic to a commercial environment has been neither easy nor smooth but it has been interesting from many different perspectives. This article gives an overview of this journey, discusses the features of Arjuna that enables it to support a wide variety of transaction services and concludes by presenting lessons learned.