Conflict Resolution for Eventual Consistency

Slides from a talk given at Code Mesh, London, 3 November 2016 and at GOTO Berlin, 15 November 2016.
http://martin.kleppmann.com/2016/11/03/code-mesh.html

Abstract:

What do collaborative editors like Google Docs, the calendar app on your phone, and multi-datacenter database clusters have in common?

Answer: They all need to cope with network interruptions, and still work offline. They all allow state to be updated concurrently in several different places, and asynchronously propagate changes to other nodes. If data is concurrently changed on different nodes, you get conflicts that need to be resolved.

There are different approaches to handling those conflicts: some systems let the user manually resolve them; some systems choose one version as the winner and throw away the other versions; and some systems try to merge concurrent updates automatically. For example, Google Docs uses an algorithm called Operational Transform (OT) to perform this merge, while Riak uses Conflict-Free Replicated Datatypes (CRDTs) to achieve a similar thing.

In this talk we will explore these algorithms for automatic merging. They start out quite simple, but as we shall see, they soon become fascinatingly mind-bending once you start trying to do more ambitious things. For example, if you wanted to write your own spreadsheet app or graphics software that allows several users to edit the same document concurrently, how would you go about doing that?

References:

1. Carlos Baquero, Paulo Sérgio Almeida, and Carl Lerche: “The problem with embedded CRDT counters and a solution,” at 2nd Workshop on the Principles and Practice of Consistency for Distributed Data (PaPoC), April 2016. http://haslab.uminho.pt/cbm/files/abstractcounterpapocfinal.pdf

2. Russell Brown: “A Bluffers Guide to CRDTs in Riak,” 28 October 2013. https://gist.github.com/russelldb/f92f44bdfb619e089a4d

3. John Day-Richter: “What’s different about the new Google Docs: Making collaboration fast,” 23 September 2010. https://drive.googleblog.com/2010/09/whats-different-about-new-google-docs.html

4. Clarence Ellis and S J Gibbs: “Concurrency Control in Groupware Systems,” at ACM International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), pages 399–407, May 1989. http://www-ihm.lri.fr/~mbl/ENS/CSCW/material/papers/Ellis-SIGMOD89.pdf

5. Abdessamad Imine, Pascal Molli, Gérald Oster, and Michaël Rusinowitch: “Proving Correctness of Transformation Functions in Real-Time Groupware,” at 8th European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW), pages 277–293, September 2003. http://www.ecscw.org/2003/015Imine_ecscw03.pdf

6. Martin Kleppmann and Alastair R Beresford: “A Conflict-Free Replicated JSON Datatype,” arXiv:1608.03960, August 2016. http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.03960

7. Brice Nédelec, Pascal Molli, Achour Mostefaoui, and Emmanuel Desmontils: “LSEQ: an Adaptive Structure for Sequences in Distributed Collaborative Editing,” at 13th ACM Symposium on Document Engineering (DocEng), pages 37–46, September 2013. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/file/index/docid/921633/filename/fp025-nedelec.pdf

8. David A Nichols, Pavel Curtis, Michael Dixon, and John Lamping: “High-Latency, Low-Bandwidth Windowing in the Jupiter Collaboration System,” at 8th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), pages 111–120, November 1995. http://www.lively-kernel.org/repository/webwerkstatt/projects/Collaboration/paper/Jupiter.pdf

9. Gérald Oster, Pascal Urso, Pascal Molli, and Abdessamad Imine: “Data Consistency for P2P Collaborative Editing,” at ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), November 2006. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/file/index/docid/108523/filename/OsterCSCW06.pdf

10. Nuno Preguiça, Joan Manuel Marquès, Marc Shapiro, and Mihai Letia: “A commutative replicated data type for cooperative editing,” at 29th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), June 2009. https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00445975/document

11. Matthias Ressel, Doris Nitsche-Ruhland, and Rul Gunzenhäuer: “An Integrating, Transformation-Oriented Approach to Concurrency Control and Undo in Group Editors,” at ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), pages 288–297, November 1996. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6a31/3d12c90b01efae531e70f8d0cd1d1e8565ae.pdf

12. Hyun-Gul Roh, Myeongjae Jeon, Jin-Soo Kim, and Joonwon Lee: “Replicated abstract data types: Building blocks for collaborative applications,” Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, volume 71, number 3, pages 354–368, March 2011. http://csl.skku.edu/papers/jpdc11.pdf

13. Marc Shapiro, Nuno Preguiça, Carlos Baquero, and Marek Zawirski: “A comprehensive study of Convergent and Commutative Replicated Data Types,” INRIA Research Report 7506, January 2011. http://hal.inria.fr/inria-00555588/

14. Daniel Spiewak: “Understanding and Applying Operational Transformation,” 17 May 2010. http://www.codecommit.com/blog/java/understanding-and-applying-operational-transformation

15. Chengzheng Sun and Clarence Ellis: “Operational Transformation in Real-Time Group Editors: Issues, Algorithms, and Achievements,” at ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), pages 59–68, November 1998. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.53.933&rep=rep1&type=pdf

16. Chengzheng Sun, Xiaohua Jia, Yanchun Zhang, Yun Yang, and David Chen: “Achieving Convergence, Causality Preservation, and Intention Preservation in Real-Time Cooperative Editing Systems,” ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, volume 5, number 1, pages 63–108, 1998. http://salvin.jeancharles.free.fr/Documents/Projet%20-%20Boulot/NTU-Singapore/p63-sun.pdf

17. Stéphane Weiss, Pascal Urso, and Pascal Molli: “Logoot-Undo: Distributed Collaborative Editing System on P2P networks,” IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, volume 21, number 8, pages 1162–1174, January 2010. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pascal_Urso/publication/233882440_Logoot-Undo_Distributed_Collaborative_Editing_System/links/0fcfd50c84f5194937000000.pdf

Transcript

44. https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.03960
48. Demo
96. References (1) 1.  Carlos Baquero, Paulo Sérgio Almeida, and Carl Lerche: “The problem with embedded CRDT counters and a solution,” at 2nd Workshop on the Principles and Practice of Consistency for Distributed Data (PaPoC), April 2016. http://haslab.uminho.pt/cbm/files/ abstractcounterpapocfinal.pdf 2.  Russell Brown: “A Bluffers Guide to CRDTs in Riak,” 28 October 2013. https:// gist.github.com/russelldb/f92f44bdfb619e089a4d 3.  John Day-Richter: “What’s different about the new Google Docs: Making collaboration fast,” 23 September 2010. https://drive.googleblog.com/2010/09/whats-different-about-new- google-docs.html 4.  Clarence Ellis and S J Gibbs: “Concurrency Control in Groupware Systems,” at ACM International Conference on Management of Data (SIGMOD), pages 399–407, May 1989. http://www-ihm.lri.fr/~mbl/ENS/CSCW/material/papers/Ellis-SIGMOD89.pdf 5.  Abdessamad Imine, Pascal Molli, Gérald Oster, and Michaël Rusinowitch: “Proving Correctness of Transformation Functions in Real-Time Groupware,” at 8th European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (ECSCW), pages 277–293, September 2003. http://www.ecscw.org/2003/015Imine_ecscw03.pdf 6.  Martin Kleppmann and Alastair R Beresford: “A Conflict-Free Replicated JSON Datatype,” arXiv:1608.03960, August 2016. http://arxiv.org/abs/1608.03960
97. References (2) 7.  Brice Nédelec, Pascal Molli, Achour Mostefaoui, and Emmanuel Desmontils: “LSEQ: an Adaptive Structure for Sequences in Distributed Collaborative Editing,” at 13th ACM Symposium on Document Engineering (DocEng), pages 37–46, September 2013. https:// hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/file/index/docid/921633/filename/fp025-nedelec.pdf 8.  David A Nichols, Pavel Curtis, Michael Dixon, and John Lamping: “High-Latency, Low- Bandwidth Windowing in the Jupiter Collaboration System,” at 8th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), pages 111–120, November 1995. http:// www.lively-kernel.org/repository/webwerkstatt/projects/Collaboration/paper/Jupiter.pdf 9.  Gérald Oster, Pascal Urso, Pascal Molli, and Abdessamad Imine: “Data Consistency for P2P Collaborative Editing,” at ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), November 2006. https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/file/index/docid/108523/ filename/OsterCSCW06.pdf 10. Nuno Preguiça, Joan Manuel Marquès, Marc Shapiro, and Mihai Letia: “A commutative replicated data type for cooperative editing,” at 29th IEEE International Conference on Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS), June 2009. https://hal.inria.fr/inria-00445975/ document 11. Matthias Ressel, Doris Nitsche-Ruhland, and Rul Gunzenhäuer: “An Integrating, Transformation-Oriented Approach to Concurrency Control and Undo in Group Editors,” at ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), pages 288–297, November 1996. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ 6a31/3d12c90b01efae531e70f8d0cd1d1e8565ae.pdf
98. References (3) 12. Hyun-Gul Roh, Myeongjae Jeon, Jin-Soo Kim, and Joonwon Lee: “Replicated abstract data types: Building blocks for collaborative applications,” Journal of Parallel and Distributed Computing, volume 71, number 3, March 2011. http://csl.skku.edu/papers/jpdc11.pdf 13. Marc Shapiro, Nuno Preguiça, Carlos Baquero, and Marek Zawirski: “A comprehensive study of Convergent and Commutative Replicated Data Types,” INRIA Research Report 7506, January 2011. http://hal.inria.fr/inria-00555588/ 14. Daniel Spiewak: “Understanding and Applying Operational Transformation,” 17 May 2010. http://www.codecommit.com/blog/java/understanding-and-applying-operational- transformation 15. Chengzheng Sun and Clarence Ellis: “Operational Transformation in Real-Time Group Editors: Issues, Algorithms, and Achievements,” at ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), pages 59–68, November 1998. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/ viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.53.933&rep=rep1&type=pdf 16. Chengzheng Sun, Xiaohua Jia, Yanchun Zhang, Yun Yang, and David Chen: “Achieving Convergence, Causality Preservation, and Intention Preservation in Real-Time Cooperative Editing Systems,” ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 5(1), 1998. http:// salvin.jeancharles.free.fr/Documents/Projet%20-%20Boulot/NTU-Singapore/p63-sun.pdf 17. Stéphane Weiss, Pascal Urso, and Pascal Molli: “Logoot-Undo: Distributed Collaborative Editing System on P2P networks,” IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems, 21(8): 1162–1174, January 2010. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Pascal_Urso/publication/ 233882440_Logoot-Undo_Distributed_Collaborative_Editing_System/links/ 0fcfd50c84f5194937000000.pdf