| dc.description.abstract | Cloud computing allows users to tap into a massive pool of shared computing
resources such as servers, storage, and network. These resources are provided as a
service to the users allowing them to “plug into the cloud” similar to a utility grid.
The promise of the cloud is to free users from the tedious and often complex task of
managing and provisioning computing resources to run applications. At the same
time, the cloud brings several additional benefits including: a pay-as-you-go cost
model, easier deployment of applications, elastic scalability, high availability, and
a more robust and secure infrastructure.
One important class of applications that users are increasingly deploying in
the cloud is database management systems. Database management systems differ
from other types of applications in that they manage large amounts of state that
is frequently updated, and that must be kept consistent at all scales and in the
presence of failure. This makes it difficult to provide scalability and high availability
for database systems in the cloud. In this thesis, we show how we can exploit
cloud technologies and relational database systems to provide a highly available
and scalable database service in the cloud.
The first part of the thesis presents RemusDB, a reliable, cost-effective high
availability solution that is implemented as a service provided by the virtualization
platform. RemusDB can make any database system highly available with little or
no code modifications by exploiting the capabilities of virtualization. In the second
part of the thesis, we present two systems that aim to provide elastic scalability
for database systems in the cloud using two very different approaches. The three
systems presented in this thesis bring us closer to the goal of building a scalable
and reliable transactional database service in the cloud. | en |
