Ingo Rammer's Weblog: Airline Reservation System
Airline Reservation System
August 25, 2003 07:33 AM

I just read up on the assignments for Monash University's CSE5000 - Distributed Object Technology. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have the certain feeling that two of the most common samples for two of the most important technologies are somewhat flawed:

  • Banking as an example for distributed transactions. (Transfer money from account X at bank A to account Y at bank B)
  • Airline reservation (Hold seats, book seats, view seats with high emphasis on concurrency)
I somehow doubt that bank A would use a distributed TX while communicating with bank B. Remember, using a distributed TX in this case means handing out a lock to a different entity for a potentially unknown time. You wouldn't want to do this.

A similar thing is true for airline reservation systems. The last time I checked, a ticket was no guarantee for a seat and the only real transactional guarantee for a seat is during check in. Reservation doesn't count too much here.