The object-oriented approach to system structuring has found widespread acceptance among designers and developers of robust computing systems. The authors propose a system structure for distributed programming systems that support persistent objects and describe how properties such as persistence and recoverability can be implemented. The proposed structure is modular, permitting easy exploitation of any distributed computing facilities provided by the underlying system. An existing system constructed according to the principles espoused here is examined to illustrate the practical utility of the proposed approach to system structuring.>

Presents a general model for persistent replicated object management and identify what metainformation about objects needs to be maintained by a naming and binding service to ensure that objects named by application programs are bound to only those object replicas which are in a mutually consistent state. These ideas are developed within the framework of a distributed system in which application programs are composed of atomic actions (atomic transactions) manipulating persistent (long-lived) objects.>