English

Abstract

Rapid Elasticity is often described as an essential characteristic of cloud computing, but there are some good reasons to rethink how it is described and implemented – especially as it relates to transaction processing relational databases, which are broadly used in many organizations. These types of relational databases, which support transaction processing, strictly adhere to what has been called the ACID compliance model, where the Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, and Durability of transactions are guaranteed to ensure a reliable transaction system. Databases in the cloud often sacrifice one or more of these essential ACID properties to achieve the desired Rapid Elasticity. This conflict between Rapid Elasticity and ACID compliance explains why relatively few existing transactional processing relational databases have been deployed to the cloud without undergoing significant revision. This paper argues for an expanded definition of the essential characteristic of cloud computing on which the underlying goal of Rapid Elasticity is based, but where the ACID compliance remains intact and many of the advantages of cloud computing can be utilized.