A distinctly different (but related) concept is that of data synchronization. This refers to the need to keep multiple copies of a set of data coherent with one another.
Examples include:
- File synchronization, such as syncing a hand-held MP3 player to a desktop computer.
- Cluster file systems, which are file systems that maintain data or indexes in a coherent fashion across a whole computing cluster.
- Cache coherency, maintaining multiple copies of data in sync across multiple caches.
- RAID, where data is written in a redundant fashion across multiple disks, so that the loss of any one disk does not lead to a loss of data.
- Database replication, where copies of data on a database are kept in sync, despite possible large geographical separation.
- Journaling, a technique used by many modern file systems to make sure that file metadata are updated on a disk in a coherent, consistent manner.
Read more about this topic: Synchronization (computer Science)
Famous quotes containing the word data:
“This city is neither a jungle nor the moon.... In long shot: a cosmic smudge, a conglomerate of bleeding energies. Close up, it is a fairly legible printed circuit, a transistorized labyrinth of beastly tracks, a data bank for asthmatic voice-prints.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)