Reliable message propagation in a distributed computer system

Abstract

According to an approach for propagating messages in a distributed computer system, message information is identified that needs to be sent to a destination site. After the message information is identified, the message information is assigned a propagation sequence number that identifies when the message information is sent to the destination site relative to other message information sent from the source site to the destination site. A message that is based on the message information is then transmitted to the destination site. The transmitted message includes the sequence number value and a source ID that identifies the source site as transmitting the message to the destination site. After the message is received at the destination site, the propagation sequence number that was assigned to the message information may be stored in nonvolatile memory at the destination site. In response to transmitting the message to the destination site, the source site may store in nonvolatile memory, propagation information that includes the sequence number, propagation state information and a unique ID that uniquely identifies the message information. After storing the propagation information in nonvolatile memory, the source site may also send a commit request to the destination site. The source site then waits for a commit acknowledge message to be received from the destination site. In response to receiving the commit acknowledge message, the source site updates the propagation state information to indicate that changes that were included in the message have been committed at the destination site.