GaussDB-Global: A Geographically Distributed Database System
This paper , presented in the industry track of ICDE 2024 , introduces GaussDB-Global (GlobalDB) , Huawei's geographically distributed database system. GlobalDB replaces the centralized transaction management (GTM) of GaussDB with a decentralized system based on synchronized global clocks (GClock) . This approach mirrors Google Spanner's TrueTime approach and its commit-wait technique, which provides externally serializable transactions by waiting out the uncertainty interval. However, GlobalDB claims compatibility with commodity hardware, avoiding the need for specialized networking infrastructure for synchronized clock distribution. The GClock system uses GPS receivers and atomic clocks as the global time source device at each regional cluster. Each node synchronizes its clock with the global time source over TCP every 1 millisecond. Clock deviation is kept low because synchronization is achieved within 60 microseconds as a TCP round trip, and the CPU’s clock drift is bound...