Remote duplicate database facility with improved throughput and fault

Abstract

A local computer system has a local database, application programs that modify the local database, and a transaction manager that stores audit records in a local audit trail reflecting those application program modifications to the local database. Each audit record has an associated audit trail position. A remotely located computer system has a backup database. A remote data duplication facility (RDF) is partially located in the local computer system and partially in the remote computer for maintaining virtual synchronization of the backup database with the local database. The RDF includes an extractor process executed by said local computer system, and a receiver process and a plurality of updater processes executed by the remote computer system. The extractor process extracts audit records from the local audit trail and transmits those records to the receiver process. When the receiver process detects that it is receiving audit records not in accordance with a predefined sequence, it transmits an error message to the extractor process. Otherwise it distributes the received audit records to a plurality of image trail files in the remote computer system for processing by updater processes, which initiate redo operations of database modifications denoted in at least a subset of the audit records against the backup database. The extractor process responds to each error message by obtaining a restart audit trail position value from the receiver process and then extracting audit records from the local audit trail starting at that restart audit trail position value.