A distributed transaction monitor

The authors have designed and implemented a multidatabase prototype system supporting heterogeneous transaction managers and event detection mechanisms. The system uses agents to implement different types of transaction managers; each transaction manager implements a transaction model tailored for a specific application. Control information is stored in shared persistent storage to allow concurrent access by agents. Agents, through the use of system level triggers on shared control information, support extended transaction models. Applications are presented with a choice of concurrency control and commit protocols to support transaction management. The current prototype is running as a data management backbone for a multimedia communication system supporting 160 users