Computing, IT & AI

ARIES database recovery

1992 CEC. Mohan and colleagues (IBM Almaden)ARIES: a transaction recovery method (ACM TODS, 1992)Diaspora (work abroad)

1989

The algorithm that lets databases recover their exact state after a crash without losing committed transactions.

Dated: 1989–1992
As scholars put it: 1992 CE
Originator: C. Mohan and colleagues (IBM Almaden)
Source text: ARIES: a transaction recovery method (ACM TODS, 1992)
Region: Diaspora (work abroad)
Discipline: Computing, IT & AI
Evidence: Documented
Confidence: High
Verification: Verified-web

Background

C. Mohan, born in Tamil Nadu and educated in Chennai, joined IBM Research in 1981. His ARIES family of algorithms combines write-ahead logging, repeating history during redo, and logging changes made during undo, so that a database can safely write unfinished work to disk and still recover exactly.

Significance

ARIES became the standard design for transaction recovery and is used by IBM Db2, Microsoft SQL Server and many other databases. It is among the most cited papers in database research.

Path to modern innovation

Behind the reliability of banking, booking and payment databases.

Global impact

Crash recovery in commercial relational databases.

References

3ARIES: a transaction recovery method supporting fine-granularity locking and partial rollbacks using write-ahead logging C. Mohan, D. Haderle, B. Lindsay, H. Pirahesh and P. Schwarz, 1992