The multiphase coordination protocol is a scalable, flexible, platform-independent technique that synchronizes the functions of multiple parallel instances of Teradata PT operators.
This protocol is commonly employed using multiple instances of either of the following operators:
- Producer operator – accesses a partitioned table, where each instance of the operator is responsible for reading one partition
- Consumer operator – writes data rows to a database using multiple database sessions
In either case, the access operator must be written to support multiple instances of itself, and they must all be synchronized so they can share, access, or manage resources in a coordinated fashion under the parallel execution environment.
The most common coordination methods, such as WAIT, POST, LOCK, UNLOCK, GROUP, and BARRIER functions are usually platform-dependent. They require multiple implementations to support applications in a heterogeneous system environment.
The Teradata PT multiphase coordination protocol, however, is platform-independent and functions without modification on any platform that supports the Teradata PT infrastructure.